First in a series of profiles during Black History Month highlighting unsung African-American figures from New England.
Several years before the Civil War broke out, William Cooper Nell, a Boston-born abolitionist and journalist, dedicated himself to an unheard-of task: documenting the contributions of Black people to American independence so that no one would ever forget them.
His work would make him one of the country’s first historians of the Black experience. In addition to advocating for the end of slavery, he championed the desegregation of schools and explored the stories of Black war heroes who went into battle with their white counterparts in hopes of a shared future.
Over a century and a half after his death, Nell’s work has a lasting impact, historians say, cementing the role of Black Americans in the fight for freedom.
“He really is one of the first voices out there who is reminding people that this nation would not be where it is, where it was, would not have been founded without the critical service of African Americans,” said Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai, chief historian at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
He published several volumes adding chapters of Black Americans’ service to the nation’s historical narrative, the most notable being “Services of Colored Americans in the Wars of 1776 and 1812” and “The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution” — two of the earliest histories of African Americans.
Nell — born on Dec. 16, 1816, in Boston — was introduced to racial inequality and civic activism from a young age. He was the son of William Guion Nell, a prominent tailor and activist, and mentee to William Lloyd Garrison, the journalist known for the popular abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, to which Nell contributed. Nell also wrote for the North Star, the anti-slavery newspaper founded by Frederick Douglass.
Nell pushed Boston to revive the legacy of Crispus Attucks, one of the five men killed in the Boston Massacre, the event that radicalized colonists against British rule on the road to revolution. The Massachusetts Historical Society has in its collection an advertisement written by Nell to commemorate the 93rd anniversary of the Boston Massacre at Tremont Temple, honoring the “martyrdom of the colored American Crispus Attucks.”
One voice that Nell brought to life was that of the Bucks of America, a Massachusetts militia unit of African American soldiers that was likely active between the end of the American Revolution and the start of the republic under the US Constitution. Few records remain about the unit, but one of the two pieces of its history in possession of the MHS is a silk Bucks flag donated by Nell.
Wongsrichanalai said, “Nell is not just a writer of history, but he’s also a witness to and a student of history.” He also highlighted Nell’s work fighting segregation in Boston schools in the 1800s, a century before the issue gained national prominence. His efforts led the state legislature in 1855 to outlaw public school segregation, initiating a nationwide movement that culminated in the Supreme Court ruling of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
Nell was also a key player in Boston’s fight against the Fugitive Slave Act, a portion of the Compromise of 1850 that allowed slave catchers to track down escaped enslaved people, bring them before a federal magistrate, and force them to re-enter slavery.
Nell was at the forefront of Boston’s resistance, Wongsrichanalai said, helping ensure formerly enslaved people had a “safe passage out of the hands of these slave catchers,” who were, in essence, federal agents, he said. He was a founding member in 1842 of the New England Freedom Association, a Boston organization that assisted fugitive slaves.
Nell later became the first African American to hold a federal position as a US Postal Department clerk in 1861.
Wongsrichanalai said Nell’s contributions were indispensable to the narrative of American history, reminding people that Black Americans played a key role in founding the United States.
“He is, from the very start, pushing back against those who would claim that Blacks had no role whatsoever in American independence and the development of the nation,” he said.
“Historians of the modern day can see the absolutely essential work that our previous scholars like Nell have done in ensuring that the people of their time and, of course, our own time remember the contributions of Blacks to every single period of American history.”
Lauren Albano can be reached at lauren.albano@globe.com. Follow her on X @LaurenAlbano_.