Black Bookmark Project highlights pioneers less known, but all worth taking a page from

This Black History Month sees the launch of the Cambridge Black Bookmark Project, giving young readers free bookmarks – photos on the front, biographies on the back – introducing more people to a generation of black trailblazers not yet given physical markers around the city.

Learning the untold stories of Black residents at the Lynn Museum and walking in the steps of historical women with the Cambridge Black History Project

Question: what is one thing, regardless of party, every American President has agreed on since 1976? They’ve all designated February as black history month. To understand why, you must go back another 50 years to 1926.

Gertrude Wright Morgan (1861 – 1931)

Gertrude Wright Morgan grew up experiencing and demonstrating Black excellence from her earliest days. But she also knew first-hand the societal and personal injustice and cruelty White people could inflict on her, her family, and her people. For the rest of her life, she pushed the boundaries drawn tightly around her as a Black person—and especially as a Black woman—working to expose and fight against White supremacist calumny and oppression and to create opportunities for coming generations of African Americans and all women.

Nadine Fortune Wright (1893 – 1994)

Nadine Fortune Wright was born into plenty on August 9, 1893. Her parents, Willis Wright and Mamie Drake Wright, were well-educated teachers. Her Wright grandparents, Thomas and Sarah Fortune Wright, were among the most financially well-off people in Springfield, Illinois, owning farmland in that state and Missouri and substantial property in the center of town.

Adina E. White (1861? – 1930)

Forgotten until renewed interest in Gertrude Wright Morgan led to her rediscovery, Adina E. White was once a well-known figure in Cambridge. An intellectual, an artist, a businesswoman, and a supporter of local charities, she led an unusual life, and we can only regret that, at least so far, we have so little of her story in her own voice.