Blacks in Boston

Coming from a majority Black city to the cold North, Collier settled in at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “I think I was one of 35 or 40 Black master’s students in the whole school,” she said. There, Collier first began doing what has become somewhat of a life’s calling: creating community.

In the last 10 years, Boston has gained 58,000 new residents and grown slightly more diverse, with increases in the Latino and Asian share of its population. But 8,800 Black people dropped from the city’s count, continuing a 20-year downward trend.

An estimated 10,000 Blacks were hired through Jobs Clearing House, founded by Tom Brown. This was a major change in the employment status of Blacks in Boston.