Series
Basic Black
Episode Number
2914
Episode
19th Century Black Merchant
Producing Organization
WGBH Educational Foundation
Contributing Organization
WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip-15-01pg65td
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Description
Episode Description
Local merchants who played a significant role in the abolition movement. With archival photographs and artwork, interviews with historians, and discussions with the descendents of prominent black Bostonians, BASIC BLACK shows viewers a world rarely seen in history books. Judge Julian Houston tells BASIC BLACK how the African American community in Boston in the 1800s was influential in politics, in the abolitionist movement, and in the fight to desegregate Massachusetts schools. Mario Valdes, a researcher, brings Steven Ellis to the Museum of Fine Arts to show him a portrait of his great-great grandmother, Elizabeth. Ellis is a descendent of Samuel Copeland, a wealthy black merchant who ran a successful used clothing store near Haymarket. Not only did Copeland marry a white woman--an Irish immigrant--his family had several white English and Irish servants. BASIC BLACK also interviews Franklin A. Dorman, author of Twenty Families of Color in Massachusetts, and Lena Reddick, descendent of one of those families. Reddick's ancestor, John T. Hilton, was the most prominent and influential black abolitionist of his era and was close friends with abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Reddick talks about her pride in learning of her family's prominent place in Boston history and in sharing that history with her daughter.
Description
No description available
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
00:27:37;14
Embed Code
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Credits
Producing Organization: WGBH Educational Foundation
Production Unit: Local Productions
AAPB Contributor Holdings
WGBH
Identifier: cpb-aacip-bffed15e795 (Filename)
Format: Betacam
Generation: Master
Duration: 00:25:49
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Citations
Chicago: “Basic Black; 2914; 19th Century Black Merchant,” WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed April 26, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-01pg65td.
MLA: “Basic Black; 2914; 19th Century Black Merchant.” WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. April 26, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-01pg65td>.
APA: Basic Black; 2914; 19th Century Black Merchant. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-01pg65td