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Massachusetts has played an important role in American black history. And like black history in general, that has ranged from works of courage and conviction (the abolition movement, Martin Luther King's formative days as a graduate student) to evil and racial hatred (Boston's pivotal role in the triangular trade in the 1700s and the busing crisis and Charles Stuart case of more recent times).

To better help you understand black history in Massachusetts and across the country, we've collected the following links:

Black History Month
An online exhibit of the Massachusetts Historical Society's holdings related to black history in the state.

Black History Month Project-Based Videoconference Transcript
Last February, students at Cambridge Rindge and Latin had a videoconference with counterparts in California on the meaning of the month.

Boston's Black Heritage Trail
A walking tour of sites of significance in black history.

Museum of Afro-American History
On Joy and Smith streets, Beacon Hill.

The triangular trade saw Boston rum producers help pay for the importation of slaves into the West Indies to grow sugar to turn into molasses to ship to Boston to distill more rum.

Crispus Attucks was the first person to die in the Boston Massacre. Framingham and Natick have long argued over which town he lived in. You can see a photo of his grave.

The Redpath House in Malden was a stop on the Underground Railway.

William Lloyd Garrison led the fight for abolition through his paper, The Liberator. Although Boston eventually honored him with a statue on Commonwealth Avenue, at first many Bostonians considered him a dangerous rabblerouser.

The 54th Massachusetts was the first black unit in the Civil War. The Shaw Memorial on Beacon Hill commemorates the 54th and its commander, Robert Gould Shaw.

Phyllis Wheatley of Boston was America's first black woman poet.

Black History Quest is a source for African-American History, Culture, and Black Studies Resources.