Educator and community activist Jane C. Waters (1902-1983) was director of the West End Community Center and established the first pre-kindergarten school in New Bedfordโs West End.
Educator Alberta Mae Knox (1896-1991) was the first Black graduate from the newly built New Bedford High School in 1913, when she was elected class salutatorian by the faculty.
Born and raised in Rochester, entrepreneur and activist Lena Britto (1921-2007) owned and operated Van-Lee Beauty Salon in East Wareham for over 18 years.
Born in New Bedford to parents who had been enslaved, educator Elizabeth Piper Ensley (1847-1919) was an active leader in African American womenโs clubs and the womenโs suffrage movement in Colorado.
Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts accepted New Bedford High School graduate Carrie Evelina S. Lee (1895-1979) for admission in 1913. Upon arrival, rejection from her assigned dormitory became the impetus for a cornerstone in the founding of what would become Smith Collegeโs Black Student Alliance.
Emma Louise Piper (1845-1915) was the first African American teacher in Cambridge, MD after the Civil War. Emma was one of 41 New Bedford men and women, both Black and White, who participated in the efforts to educate the newly freed people.
Charlotte White (1775?-1861), born to a Wampanoag Native American and a former slave, connected with the Native American and African American communities, worked for poor relief, and practiced folk medicine and midwifery during her lifetime in Westport.
Writer, abolitionist and educator, Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813-1897) is the only African American woman known to have left writing documenting her enslavement.
Confectioner and abolitionist Polly Johnson (1784-1871) specialized in sweets and provided safe lodging to freedom seekers in New Bedford along the Underground Railroad.