Providence

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East Side

Water Street to Benefit

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Snowtown Riot 1831 - Marker: North end of Roger Williams National Memorial, 282 North Main Street. Inscription: "The site of the second major riot between Providence African American residents and white workers."

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/uncovering-snowtown-and-the-racially-motivated-mob-attack-that-changed-rhode-island-180978798/

 

https://thesnowtownproject.wordpress.com/

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Hardscrabble Riot 1824 - Marker: Median strip between North Main Street and Charles Street. Inscription: "The site of Addison Hollow where the first nineteenth century blacks purchased property and the site of the first major riot." White rioters caused the partial destruction of this community and brought about the institution of a police department.

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Center for Reconciliation: St. John's Episcopal Cathedral, 275 North Main Street. The Center is a nonprofit organization based in dedicated to the work of racial justice and racial reconciliation. More at: http://cfrri.org/

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First Baptist Church in America 1775: 75 North Main Street. In

1768 the  church began to record its Black members, including  Mary Almy, Phillis Anderson, Violet Brown Johnson, Mary Ann Brown (wife of Pero), Mrs. Betsey Brown, Hannah Hopkins Colen, Phillis Church, Eliza Jackson Green, Anstis Greene and many others. In 1819, Black members met with White leaders to plan an exodus from the church to build their own house of worship, the African Meeting House. See plaque to the left of the front entrance commemorating this event and the oil portrait of sexton and bell ringer, Noah C. Wesley (1855-1928), who held the position from 1882 to 1928, within. Tours available: 

https://www.firstbaptistchurchinamerica.org/tours-and-gift-shop/

For an extensive list of its Black members, read Stanley Lemon's Black in a White Church.

 

^ Market Square, 1774: Corner of North Main and College Streets. Site of the Militia Act of 1862 which permitted Blacks to participate in the Civil War. Multiple Black vendors had food carts or stalls within, including butcher Titus Guinea, grocer Simon Manuel, butcher George Thomas, refreshment stand vendor George M'Carty, food vendor Peter Waters, 

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Stephen Hopkins House, 1707: 15 Hopkins Street. This signer of the Declaration of Independence wrote in this house "Rights of Colonies Examined," a 1764 treatise which declared "liberty is the greatest blessing that men enjoy, and slavery the heaviest curse that human nature is capable of," despite the fact that he held six slaves here: Fibbo, St. Jago, Prince, Toney, Adam and Primus. For tours visit: http://www.stephenhopkins.org/

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Joseph Brown House: 50 South Main Street.  African American Noah Brown, father of memoirist William J. Brown (see below), lived here at the back of this house. The Browns ran their many businesses, including slaving, out of this building. Brown both participated in the slave trade and enslaved people via his family businesses. Some of those enslaved persons lived and worked in this house. At the time of his death there were four enslaved people in the household, including Phillis, Jenny and Fortune, who lived in the attic. This house was later used as a bank, a vital contributor to the system of slavery.

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Slave Marker: Water Street, just south of Planet Street. Acknowledges Providence as a slave port in the 18th century, and as a port for Cape Verdeans arriving in the city in the early 20th century. (Note vandal's attempt to eradicate the reference to slavery.)

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William J. Brown Birth Site (1814): Planet Street, midway between Benefit and South Main Streets on the south side, now a parking lot. For a stunning account of 19th century Black life on College Hill, read his Memoirs of William J. Brown, 1883.

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Providence Gazette (also called “Shakespeare’s Head"): 21 Meeting Street. Housed John Carter and his newspaper business, The Providence Gazette. It’s a place to consider the role of media in upholding slavery with ads in Rhode Island newspapers selling enslaved people and seeking help capturing “runaways,” as well as articles and images. At least two enslaved people lived and worked here, Ingow and Fanny, who were manumitted in 1789.

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Michael S. Van Leesten Memorial Bridge: Bridge Rd. off South Water St. Opened to the public in August 2019 as The Providence River Pedestrian Bridge, the Providence City Council’s Committee on Urban Redevelopment, Renewal, and Planning voted to rename the bridge in June 2020 in honor of Michael S. Van Leesten, a civil rights activist, business and community leader, athlete, and a life-long resident of the city. The Michael S. Van Leesten Memorial Bridge stands as the culmination of nearly 30 years of planning between the City of Providence and several local anchor institutions. Spanning the Providence River and connecting the neighborhood of Fox Point in the east with the Innovation and Design District in the west, the bridge serves as a community gathering place, offering performances, moments of quiet introspection, and an unparalleled view of the city’s skyline. https://theprovidencerink.com/michael-s-van-leesten-memorial-bridge/

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Benefit Street

 

^Tourist Home: 12 Benefit Street. Listed in the 1947 Negro Motorist Green Book, it was operated by Walter W. Joyce, a Maryland native who had moved to Providence with his Virginia-born wife Emma by 1928. Joyce worked variously as a laborer, butler, and houseman, and in the 1942 city directory as a “helper.”

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^ Marie Wells Beauty Shop: 18 Benefit Street. Listed in The Negro Motorist Green Book, the shop operated here as of 1947. The city directory that year gives the business name as the Marinello Beauty Shop, with Mary Ingham Young its proprietor. Young, a native of Bermuda, married Providence native Raymond Profitt Young in 1927. The shop remained in business until at least 1964. See photo: http://gowdey.ppsri.org/gowdey/Benefit%20Street/18%20Benefit%20St.%20Photo.JPG

http://community.village.virginia.edu/greenbooks/content/marie-wells-beauty-parlor/

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Mary Howard Jenkins Exhibition Site: 30 Benefit Street. In 1936, artist Mary Howard, a 1933 RISD graduate, was the only woman in the state chosen to work on the RI Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). In November, she exhibited here with other young artists of the FAP-WPA. Her atmospheric and memorably dark landscapes were reviewed as having a “tonic sadness." Howard’s works included prints of fishermen’s shacks, old houses on Benefit Street, and a large mural for the State House cafeteria depicting a family enjoying a picnic, described as “a delicately colored pastoral scene symbolizing the production and consumption of foodstuffs.” During the WPA years, Howard also painted a portrait of RI Gov. Theodore Francis Greene, displayed in the University of Rhode Island Library until at least the 1960s. https://rhodetour.org/items/show/421?tour=48&index=2

 

43 Benefit Street: (1774) In 1915, Annie Moore, who worked as a hotel maid, rented part of this house along with her mother, Lucy Henry, and two male boarders. 

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50 Benefit Street (ca. 1805) rented from about 1903 until about 1935 by teamster and driver Walter Williams. Williams was born in the District of Columbia and was living in Providence by 1885; he worked for several city caterers, including Henry W. Potter at 16 College Street in the first decade of the 1900s and the L. M. Carr Company at 107 Angell Street through at least the early 1940s

George Mitchell, an African American porter at the W. T. Grant Company and library janitor, occupied the property from the late 1940s through 1959.

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Cooper/Cummings Residence: 52 Benefit Street. In 1905, the Samuel Staples Jr. House was being rented to six African Americans: Martha A. Cummings, a department store stock clerk; her adult sons George, also a store stock clerk and Frank, an ash team driver; a ten-year-old granddaughter, and two boarders. By 1917 African American carpenter James A. Cooper, born in North Carolina in 1858, rented the house; by 1920, the Cooper family owned the house. The Coopers remained at 24 Benefit through the late 1950s.

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Nancy Elizabeth Prophet: 62 Benefit Street (Amos Allen House, 1773). The first Black female graduate of Rhode Island School of Design in 1918, Prophet (1890-1960) lived here in 1920 with her father and husband, Francis Ford, and later at 306 Benefit Street rear. Three of her sculptures are held in the RISD Museum (see below). Learn more here:

http://mappingartsproject.org/providence/artists/nancy-elizabeth-prophet/

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+ Chace Women's Headstone ca. 1801: St. John’s Cathedral Cemetery, 70 Benefit Street. “In Memory of three respectable Black Persons Phillis, Rose & Fanny Chace who served faithfully in the family of Samuel Chace Esq. The wise, the gay, the humble and the exalted, the beautiful and the deformed must all moulder in the same native clay.” (Phillis died some time between 1790-1793. Rose was buried Dec. 20, 1801) See stone here: 

http://rihistoriccemeteries.org/newgravedetails.aspx?ID=211320

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+ Judge Staples House, 75 Benefit Street, ca. 1850. A small cemetery behind the house contains the graves of members of four Black families who lived in the house from the 1830s to the 1850s.

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Charles Haskell (1760-1833): Seth Wheaton House, 1786. 81 Benefit Street. "Man of colour, a soldier of the Revolution," Haskell was a servant for Wheaton. Haskell is interred in North Burial Ground (see below) with his wife Lucy, his brother and parents. His funeral was covered in the Providence Journal. See house here: 

http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/ri/benefit/15.html

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Charles Shaw House ca. 1850: 132 Benefit Street. In the 1920s, this house served as the headquarters of the Prince Hall Masons. One of the country's oldest Masonic lodges, the all-Black association was founded in 1797 by Prince Hall, a Black Bostonian who had fought in the Revolution. Finding that Blacks unwelcome in white lodges, Hall started a lodge in Boston that sparked brother lodges in Providence and Newport.

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Old State House 1760-62: 150 Benefit Street. Here, at the time of the American Revolution in the late 1700s, there were intense debates between factions represented by Brown brothers John and Moses over the issue of slavery and a proposal by some slaveholders to free their slaves in order to let them serve as soldiers. Moses, being a Quaker, was as opposed to slavery as John was in favor of it. Housed within are archaeological artifacts from the Black neighborhood Snowtown held by the Rhode Island Historical  Preservation & Preservation Commission. Call to view: (401) 222-4140

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Old Arsenal, Providence Marine Corps of Artillery Building: 176 Benefit Street. 1840. The site of an illegal meeting of the Ku Klux Klan on May 17, 1924. Usually associated with the South, the Klan was active in Rhode Island during the 1920s. It organized a meeting at the Arsenal that attracted some 200 men. The group had no permit to meet on state property and had obtained entrance to the Arsenal by claiming it would hold a religious meeting. Later, Rhode Island's Gov. William S. Flynn denounced the Klan and forbade the group to use state property for meetings.

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Providence High School Site: 215 Benefit Street. Maritcha Lyons (1848-1929). Following her successful petitioning of the state legislature to integrate its public schools, Lyons was the first African American in Rhode Island to enter an all-white school, graduating in 1869 from Providence High School in 1869. Read Maritcha by Tonya Bolden.

 

Rhode Island School of Design and RISD Museum: 224 Benefit Street. Jewelry designer, Thomas R. Lewis; sculptress Nancy Elizabeth Prophet (see below); printmaker and jewelry designer Wilmer Jennings; Broadway scenic designer Perry Watkins (see Hope High School below); and internationally acclaimed Kara Walker; among many other African Americans, attended the School and have artwork held within the Museum. www.risdmuseum.org

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Daniel N. Morse (1795-1869): First Congregational Church, 301 Benefit Street. Morse was a sexton here. See church here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/First_Unitarian_Church_of_Providence_in_2019.jpg

In 1838, Morse and Ichabod Northrup led the  organization of Bethel A.M.E. Church, later that year building a log cabin structure at 193 Meeting Street (see below).

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Cupid Brown (Stephen Harris House): Built before 1827, 306 Benefit Street (formerly 156 Benefit Street) The once enslaved Cupid Brown from South Kingstown lived here in the rear unit. Brown worked as a steward on trading vessels. His daughter, Elizabeth Howard Smith, was known in her time as "the best teacher in the city."

https://gowdey.ppsri.org/gowdey/Benefit%20Street/306-10%20306-310%20Benefit%20St.%20Photo.JPG

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Governor Ambrose Burnside House (1866): 314 Benefit Street. Robert Holloway, a freeman, served as Burnside's valet for eleven years in this house. He was photographed by the great Civil War photographer, Mathew B. Brady circa 1862. He is buried in Jupiter Cemetery in Bristol (see Bristol). Learn more here: 

https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/the-capture-of-ambrose-burnsides-valet/

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George J. Smith (1785-1859): John Carter Brown House (Nightingale-Brown House), 357 Benefit Street. Smith was a coachman for Brown and is buried at North Burial Ground (see below). See house here: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightingale%E2%80%93Brown_House#/media/File:Nightingale%E2%80%93Brown_House_Providence_RI_2012.jpg

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# Church of the Savior: 400 Benefit Street. When St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church (see below) vacated their premises on Benefit and Transit (now Barker Playhouse) for a new building on Brown’s campus, St. Augustine’s Episcopal Mission moved there in 1840 and assumed the name of the prior residents: Church of the Savior. “A colored congregation succeeded to the name and building, remaining there some fifteen years.”

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Dress Shop: 95 Benefit Street. Susan Garrison worked here as a dressmaker in the 1820s.

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W. W. Joyce Tourist Home. 12 Benefit Street. Owned by Walter W. Joyce, listed in the 1939  city directory as a houseman, and his wife, Emma, who moved their boarding business here in 1947 after operating it at 24 Camp Street. 

http://community.village.virginia.edu/greenbooks/content/retlaw-house-tourist-home/

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For anecdotes about Black life on Benefit Street visit: 

http://www.artinruins.com/arch/streetscape/benefit/http://www.artinruins.com/arch/streetscape/benefit/

For oral histories read: African Americans on College Hill

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College Hill

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Jeffrey Osborne Way: Corner of Pratt and Olney Streets. Named for the noted R&B singer who grew up in Providence.

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John Hope Settlement House: 15 Pratt Street. See plaque. Housed here from 1939-45. First known as the Crispus Attucks Association when founded in the late 1920s, the agency was reorganized in 1937 and named the John Hope Community Association in honor of John Hope, an alumnus of Brown University, the first African American President of Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA, and a founder of the NAACP. In 1946 it moved to its present location, 7 Thomas P.  Whitten Way (named for its longest serving director). Learn more here: https://johnhopedotorg.wordpress.com/about/  

View video of plaque dedication here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQWZ-znF4ak

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Andrew Jackson, Rhode Island's first Black Dentist, early 1870s. Corner of Prospect and Halsey Streets. 

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# Congdon Street Baptist Church: 17 Congdon Street. Built 1874, it is the oldest standing Black church in Providence. For hours, services and history, visit: https://www.congdonstreet.org/

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Shelter for Colored Children: 20 Olive Street. Founded in 1838 “to provide a home where ‘orphans’ might be taught industry and improve their morals." The Shelter still operates as philanthropic fund.       

                                                                              

^ William Aaron Heathman Office Site: 19 College Street. Born in Providence in 1872, Heathman attended Doyle Avenue Grammar School; Providence English High School; Brown University, and practiced law here. 

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James S. Singleton Residence: 48 Angell Street. Born in North Carolina in 1882, Singleton lived and worked as a cook in the house of manufacturer David C. Scott from about 1930 to 1942.

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George Waterman (1799-1882) Site of Residence: 50 Benevolent Street (now a park). Waterman, "a most worthy man and exemplary citizen," was a laborer who worked as a coachman for Edward Carrington. His wife Lucy was a notable cake maker. He is buried at North Burial Ground.

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# St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church: 114 George Street: Sometime during the 1850s, the African American parish of Christ Church in downtown Providence was forced to disband. Its communicants were transferred to St. Stephen’s, which thus became one of the first racially integrated parishes in the country. George Henry, Black entrepreneur and bibliophile, served as its sexton for 25 years in the late 1800s.

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John Brown House: 52 Power Street. Brown, merchant, patriot, politician, and slave trader, was an instigator and participant in the Gaspee Affair. In spite of Rhode Island laws prohibiting slave trading, he continued the practice, even while being sued by his abolitionist brother Moses. Prior to the building of this house, Brown owned Africans Jack, Amboy, Pomp, and at least two others, who ran away to Boston and were caught. Brown and his family were some of the wealthiest and most influential people in the colonies and are the namesake of Brown University. See plaque on wall to the left of the stairs (note vandal's attempt to eradicate the reference to slavery).  Tours: https://www.rihs.org/museums/john-brown-house/

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Richard Cozzens and Hannah Robinson Residence: 57 Benevolent Street. Cozzens fought in the 1st Rhode Island Regiment during the American Revolution. Enslavers could send their enslaved men to fight in their place. Black and Indigenous men also joined by choice, whether to support the cause of freedom or for the promise of emancipation.

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Dr. Jabez Bowen House: 39 Bowen Street, Providence. Enslaved Jenny, her daughter Dinah, and Fortune lived here. Bowen provisioned slave ships with medicine and instructed slave captains how to administer the substances.

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Market Square & Market House: 4 Market Square, Providence. Black laborers Pero Paget, Thomas Shoemaker, Pomp Smith and others helped build Market House beginning in 1775.

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Sally Gallery at John Brown House: 52 Power Street. This exhibit tells the story of the slave ship Sally and its voyage from Providence to West Africa to Antigua and back in 1764–1765. While all slave voyages were inherently violent, this one suffered a particularly high loss of life. There was an insurrection, grave illness and even suicide. (See Esek Hopkins House)

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Cathedral of St. John & Burial Ground: 271 North Main Street This cathedral, originally built as King’s Church in 1722, was funded in part by the Triangle Trade. Enslavers and enslaved people both worshiped here. It is now the site of The Center for Reconciliation, an organization dedicated to educating the public about slavery and its aftermath. You can visit the grave of an enslaved family in the adjacent burial ground; Phillis Chace, her daughter Rose, and Rose’s daughter Fanny are all memorialized with one stone. 

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Welcome Arnold House: 21 Planet Street This house was the site of an ongoing legal situation. Amyntus “Mint” Martin was enslaved to a woman named Rebecca Martin. He fled her Newport home to Providence and found work as a seaman on Arnold’s vessels. Arnnold tried to force his return to Newport, but eventually settled for taking Martin’s hard-earned wages.

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President Obama Visitation 2016: 52 Barnes Street. See plaque.

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Meeting Street

 

Old Brick School House, 1769: 21 Meeting Street. In 1828 it became a public school for pupils of color called the Meeting Street Grammar School. Though segregated schools were outlawed in 1865, it remained a Black school until 1887. See plaque.

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William P. Freeman House: 58 Meeting Street. Realtor and confidant of Sissieretta Jones, and executor of her estate. Freeman also resided at 83 Benefit (tucked behind # 87), and operated his real estate and insurace business at 76 Dorrance Street (Case-Meade Building, Room 414) until he retired in 1964. It was Freeman who gave an impoverished Sissieretta $1 to take a cab to the hospital just before she died. Learn more about Freeman here: 

https://www.rifoundation.org/TransformingRhodeIsland/100YearsofCommunity/Dedicationtocommunity.aspx

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= African Meeting House Site: 98 Meeting Street. March 19, 1819, Meeting called to discuss Negro Church. Funds raised under leadership of Rev. Henry Jackson (white) and Nathaniel Paul (colored), founder of the Providence’s United African Society, “to be open and free to all Christian professors and not confined to any one profession of the Christian religion” (Read Moses Brown, Short History of African Meeting House) The first paid pastor was Mr. Asa Gouldsbury. 1819, April – Ground is broken behind the home of Black businessman George McCarty on Meeting Street for the African Union Meeting House on land donated by Quaker Moses Brown.

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= * Bethel AME Church Marker: 193 Meeting Street. Founded in 1840 as Meeting Street Church and demolished by Brown University after a 10 year battle, spearheaded by Thurgod Marshall, in the 1950s. It served as an Underground Railroad site. The church is now located at 30 Rochambeau Avenue.

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The Bannisters: Edward & Christiana

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Afro-Canadian landscape artist, Edward Mitchell Bannister was the first artist to win a national American art prize (Philadelphia Centennial, 1876) and co-founded the Providence Art Club (see below). Christiana Carteaux Bannister, born in North Kingstown, was a highly successful hair doctress, abolitionist, philanthropist, using her resources to help fund the Black 54th Civil War Regiment, found a home for elderly Black women (see below), and finance her husband's art career.

 

Gravesite: North Burial Ground, North Main & Branch Avenue. 1901. The imposing granite headstone, designed by Bannister's friends and fellow artists of the Providence Art Club, bears stunning brass appliqués. In 1976 following the decay of the original plaque, Mahler Ryder, RISD first African American professor, funded and designed the recreation of the plaque. In early 2024 the plaque was stolen, and has to date not been recovered.

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Bus Stop: Bannister tribute on glass panel. North Main Street beside North Burial Ground just south of Royal Street. (Destroyed June 2020)

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Christiana Carteaux Bannister Sculpture: Rhode Island State House, second floor, 82 Smith Street.

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Providence Art Club: 11 Thomas Street. Bannister was co-founder in 1878 of this second oldest art club in the US. Within are Bannister’s silhouette, his first prize for the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, and his paintings.

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His Art Studio: 2 College Street (Franklin House, 1822). By 1872, Bannister had moved here to a fourth floor studio, Room 50 (1878)

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^ Her Hair Salon Site: 220 Westminster Street.

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Home for Aged Colored Women: 45 East Transit Street. Founded by Christiana in 1890, she was a resident there herself prior to her death in 1902. In 1977 a new building was erected at 135 Dodge Street, Providence to serve the same population and renamed Bannister House in her honor.

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Bannister Street: at George Street. Once named for slaver, William Magee, the street was renamed for the Bannisters following Stages of Freedom's petition to the City Council in 2017 and dedicated in the fall of 2018, and is the first street officially named for African Americans in the city.

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E. M. Bannister Gallery: Roberts Hall, Rhode Island College, 600 Mt. Pleasant Avenue. Founded and named for Edward in 1978.

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Residence: 93 Benevolent Street. The Bannisters resided here from 1884 until 1898. See more here: 

http://mappingartsproject.org/providence/connection/edward-bannister-and-his-wife-lived-at-94-benevolent-st/

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Abner Hall House, 1826-27: 116 Hope Street. Chirstiana Bannister lived here in the back after Edward died in 1901. The house was owned by her niece, ca. 1895-1907. See: https://cdn4.picryl.com/photo/2019/09/15/abner-hall-house-116-hope-street-providence-providence-county-ri-b79e93-1024.jpg

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Sissieretta Jones 

Raised in Providence, Jones was an internationally renowned opera singer who studied at the Providence Academy of Music, but had deep musical roots in her father’s church, Pond Street Baptist Church. Learn much more here: 

https://www.stagesoffreedom.org/sissieretta-jones

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15 Church Street: Income property owned by Jones.

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94 Benefit Street: Income property owned by Jones; her mother lived here.

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20 Congdon Street: Site of Jones' childhood home beginning in 1876. It would have looked much like those still standing at 24 and 26.

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7 Wheaton Street: Site of Jones home where she lived in retirement until her death. She cared for her ailing mother, looked after orphaned children and held tea parties for Black girls in this house.

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Plaque: Corner of South Court and Pratt Streets. Commemorates Jones’ career as a world-renowned opera singer who lived near this site at 7 Wheaton Street until her passing in 1933.

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* Gravesite: Grace Cemetery, Elmwood Street and Broad Street. Headstone located near Broad Street across from the U-haul pick-up. Read more here: 

https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20180508/sissieretta-jones-to-get-headstone

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Brown University

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Pembroke College (all-female college at Brown): 172 Meeting Street. Ethel Tremaine Robinson, was its first Black female Brown graduate, 1905.

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Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice: 94 Waterman Street. A scholarly research center with a public humanities mission, the center was the result of the Study of Slavery & Justice, mandated by President Ruth Simmons, the first Black president of an Ivy League, to examine Brown's ties to the slave trade. Read the report here:

https://www.brown.edu/Research/Slavery_Justice/documents/SlaveryAndJustice.pdf

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Page-Robinson Hall: 68 Brown Street. Named for first Black graduates of Brown Inman Page (1877) and Ethel Tremaine Robinson (1905). See his portrait in the Brown Center for Students of Color, 68 Brown Street, and hers in the Brown Faculty Club, 1 Bannister Street.

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Rites and Reason: 155 Angell Street. The nation’s oldest Black collegiate theatre, founded by Langston Hughes' personal secretary George Houston Bass.

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Hope College: Black students such as Fritz Pollard, John Hope Franklin, etc. lived in this dorm.

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Horace Mann Buillding: 47 George Street. See plaque on east end of building acknowledging his work as an avid abolitionist.

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Ruth Simmons Quadrangle (known previously as Lincoln Field) Brown University. Bounded to the west by Sayles Hall, and to the east by Soldiers Arch, it is one of the two parcels of land that formed the original College Hill campus in 1770. Learn more here: https://news.brown.edu/articles/2012/05/simmonsquad

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Slave Trade Memorial: 21 Prospect St. Front Green, Brown University. Recognizes Brown University’s connection to the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the work of Africans and African-Americans, enslaved and free, who "helped build our university." Sculpted by Martin Puryear​ of granite and ductile cast iron.

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University Hall, 1770: 1 Prospect Street, Front Green. Pero, slave; Job, Native American; and Mingow, free African, were three of at least four slave laborers who built University Hall, then called the College Edifice for the College of Rhode Island. In the 1880s, Arthur "Jumbo" Jefferson, a Black food vendor, set up shop in the Hall's basement, selling fruit, baked goods and roasted peanuts. Read more here: 

http://www.rihs.org/assetts/files/publications/2008_Sum.pdf

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Hope High School: 324 Hope Street

 

Perry Watkins (1907-74): Broadway's first Black scenic designer, was born in Providence and attended Hope High School, where he and a friend hand wrote and decorated a daily newspaper called “The Foolscape.” Awarded a scholarship to study art at the Rhode Island School of Design (see above) in 1926, he studied figure drawing and still life, and exhibited at the Providence Arrt Club.

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Hope High Field is named for Melvin Clanton (1934-2010), a star football player and coach at Hope, and his teammate Jerry Morgan. 

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Far East Side

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George "Gunboat" Purnell: 24 Clarendon Ave. 1865. Built by Washington Cole for workers at Cole Farm. Purnell, “the greatest negro character in the city,” lived here.

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Negro Settlements: Grotto Avenue, ca. 1860. Workers for Cole Farm lived here, including Lafayette “La” Shamble, a barber who had a shop on South Main Street.

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Moses and Mary Jane Hampton House.:22 Fremont Street. In late November 1884, a meeting was held in Providence’s East Side at the Hampton home where a small group of devoted Christians gathered to pledge themselves to the creation of a new church< Ebenezer Baptist Church, on the West Side of Providence. Some other founding members were: Mr. and Mrs. Moses J. Ford, Matilda Johnson, Christopher, and Jeanette Ridley. This meeting was the result of differences of opinion of a group who left the Congdon Street Baptist Church to form a church of their own.

 

Mt. Hope

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See history of Mt. Hope Street here: http://www.mthopelc.org/about-us/history/

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Lippitt Hill: A dense, predominantly African-American, 30-acre residential neighborhood on the northern edge of College Hill and bounded by Olney Street, North Main Street, Doyle Avenue and Camp Street, was identified as “blighted” by the PRA through the provisions of the Federal Housing Act of 1949 and the City’s Redevelopment Act of 1956, and razed to make way for the inferior University Heights shopping and apartment complex. For more information visit: https://www.stagesoffreedom.org/lippitt-hill-project

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# Olney Street Baptist Church: 100 Olney Street. On December 19, 1901, one thousand dollars was paid for the church at 30 Olney Street beoming the home of the Olney Street Baptist Church for fifty-eight years. Harlem Renaissance author, Rudolph Fisher, attended services here. The church was razed during the destruction of Lippitt Hill and moved to a new edifice it built in 1963.

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Olney Street Riot 1831 - Marker: Olney Street Baptist Church, 100 Olney Street. Inscription: "The Site of the Second Major Riot in 19th century Providence between Afro-American residents and white workers." Read more here: 

https://www.academia.edu/4021242/Reconstructing_the_Olney_Lane_Riot​

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Vincent Brown Recreation Center: 438 Hope Street. Named for a prominent Black community leader who created the Mt. Hope Neighborhood Association. 

 

Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School: 35 Camp Street

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Billy Taylor Park: 124 Camp Street. Named for community activist William Taylor who died at age 29

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Billy Taylor House: 185 Camp Street Youth empowerment program named for community activist William Taylor who died at age 29. Learn more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Taylor_House

 

Camp Street Community Ministries Inc.: 194 Camp Street. Distribution center for those in need of clothes and food.

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Mt. Hope Neighborhood Association: 199 Camp Street. Founded in 1981 by community activist Vincent Brown.

 

Mt. Hope Learning Center: 140 Cypress Street

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Dr. Carl Gross House: 66 Doyle Avenue. Gross (1888-1971), lovingly referred to as "the baby doctor," brought 3,000 Black children into the world, but was never was allowed to practice in a Rhode Island hospital because of his color. An armchair scholar, he researched and cataloged countless Rhode Island African Americans and events. His papers are in the Rhode Island College Library Special Collections. See:  https://digitalcommons.ric.edu/crgross_papers/ 

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Wilmer & Mary Jennings Home: 171 Pleasant Street. Wilmer, a 1936 graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, was a printmaker, painter, and jeweler. Before matriculating to RISD, he studied sculpture at Atlanta University under Rhode Island native, Nancy  Elizabeth Prophet (see above), and was encouraged to attend RISD by John Hope, president of Atlanta  U. and a Brown University graduate (see above). Jennings had studios at Pleasant Street, 259 Williams Street, and 279 Thayer Street (all still standing). As a jewelry designer from 1943 until his death in 1990, Jennings developed a series of new techniques that benefited Imperial Pearl Company. Mary Jennings, also an artist, studied painting at RISD. More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmer_Angier_Jennings

Read: Pressing On: The Graphic Art of Wilmer Jennings.

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^= Kentucky Fried Chicken: 805 North Main Street. Co-Founded by Cape Verdean businessmen, Donald Lopes and John Daluz, in the early 1980s, with stores in both Providence and Westerly, the business has provided employment to countless Black and Cape Verdean teens.

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Stories of Mt. Hope: East Side Mural Project. Cypress Street footbridge underpass. The mural by Elijah Faris includes soprano Sissieretta Jones, drummer Billy Osborne, saxophonist David Hector, and others. 

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Mount Hope Sharing Garden: Billy Taylor Park, 124 Camp Street Mount Hope Sharing Garden is a community garden near the historically Black Olney Street neighborhood where many historic figures lived. The garden honors contributions and knowledge of Rhode Island Black farmers, free and enslaved, as well as the importance of plants, food and medicine to their survival.

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University Heights Apartment Complex: 99 Roger Williams Green.

Providence The University Heights apartment complex built between 1964 and 1968 in the Lippitt Hill neighborhood of Providence is potentially eligible for listing under Criterion A for its associations with the fair housing movement in Rhode Island, under Criterion B for its associations with developer and leading fair housing advocate Irving Fain (1906–1970, see 400 Laurel Avenue), and under Criterion C for its architectural design. The Lippitt Hill urban renewal project begun in 1959 was the first in the state to include plans for the construction of new racially and economically integrated private housing to replace the cleared buildings, which were predominantly occupied by African Americans. Providence businessman Fain, who was heading an effort to get comprehensive fair housing legislation passed by the General Assembly, submitted the chosen development proposal for a garden apartment complex and adjacent shopping center that relied partially on federal financing. The completed project consisting of 24 two- and three-story apartment buildings arranged around central courtyards was the first of its kind in the country, according to a 1968 report submitted to the Department of Housing and Urban Development 

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Lippitt Hill Elementary/Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School: 35 Camp Street, Providence The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School built in 1967 at 35 Camp Street in Providence is potentially eligible for listing under Criterion A for its associations with school desegregation in Rhode Island and under Criterion C for its non-standard architectural design based on community input. As the first intentionally planned, integrated school in the state, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School served as a catalyst for integration across the entire Providence school system and in the surrounding area. Community involvement in the entire integration process— beginning with the decision to replace two primarily black schools in the Lippitt Hill urban renewal project area with an integrated school that better reflected the overall population of the East Side— created models for redistricting plans, educational paradigms, and building designs that subsequently influenced school desegregation plans for other areas of Providence. The school remains fully integrated and appears to retain sufficient integrity to its original construction. Further research into the evolution of the architectural plans for the building and any subsequent alterations would be recommended to support its eligibility under Criterion C. 

 

Charles D. Woodward/Philip F. Addison Jr. House: 131 Camp Street, Providence. The two-story, ca. 1920, Colonial Revival-style house at 131 Camp Street in Providence is potentially eligible for listing under Criterion B for its associations with Philip F. Addison Jr. (1916–2006), the first Black City Councilor in Providence. In 1969, Addison successfully ran against three other contenders for the Democratic nomination to fill a vacancy on the City Council and went on to defeat the white Republican candidate Ann D. Ury. He was elected Deputy Majority Leader of the Council in 1975 and became Majority Leader in 1979. Along with serving on the City Council, Addison worked as the city’s Director of Recreation and volunteered as a community worker for the Urban League’s “New Thrust Program,” which was intended to facilitate communication between residents and federal and municipal organizations. He lived at 131 Camp Street from 1969 until his death in 2006, and the house remains in his family. The building retains sufficient integrity to the period during which Addison became the first black member of the City Council.

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Beatrice Coleman House: 77 Olney Street. Early graduate (1925) of Pembroke, the female college at Brown. One of the first Black teachers in the Providence school system, teaching at Hope High School.

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Summit

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+ Old Section and Free Ground, North Burial Ground, 5 Branch Avenue. A map of notable African American graves and memorials is available at the North Burial Ground office for a self-guided walking tour. Office: 8am-4pm, M-F, Cemetery open 8am-4pm 7 days a  week. http://www.providenceri.gov/providence-parks/north-burial-ground/

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Wanskuck

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Celebrity Club site: 56 Randall Street. New England's first integrated jazz club, with national headliners from 1949 to 1960. See plaque on traffic island at the intersection of Randall and Charles Streets.

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Celebrity Club Plaque: Traffic island at Charles and Ashburton Streets. Commemorates New England’s first integrated jazz club with national headliners originally located at 56 Randall Street from 1949 to 1960.

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Downtown

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Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Bridge: Finance Way & Francis Street

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Martin Luther King, Jr. bust. Rhode Island State House. Smith Street. https://providencedailydose.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/MLK-1-scaled.jpg

 

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The Scout: Kennedy Plaza. Statue of Lt. Col. Henry Harrison Young, a bi-racial Union Spy.

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Rhode Island Sailors & Soldiers Monument: Kennedy Plaza. Honors the 1st Rhode Island Regiment and the 14th RI Regiment heavy artillery (both African American).

​Recognizing Black Servicemen in Bronze · Soldiers, Sailors, and Slavery, Oh My: The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument and Chains of the American Past · Commemorative Works of Providence

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Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society: The Arcade, 65 Weybosset Street. The Society was housed here from 1837 until 1865., and hosted meetings as well as fugitive slaves. Its collection box housed used to raise funds to print abolitionist literature, purchase subscriptions to The Liberator and assist the flight of fugitive slaves to Canada is in the Brown University Library Special Collections.  Visit: http://theliberatorfiles.com/providence-rhode-island-anti-slavery-society/

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Stages of Freedom: 10 Westminster Street. This award-winning non-profit operates a gift shop and Black museum, and conducts programs about Black life, proceeds from which fund swimming lessons for African American children. Edward M. Bannister had an early studio in the building in the mid-late 19th century. Visit online at StagesofFreedom.org.

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^ Joseph G. LaCount Law Office: Case-Meade Building, 68-76 Dorrance Street. LaCount was Rhode Island's leadingg civil rights lawyer.

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Repentance for Slavery Marker: Abbott Park, Weybosset Street. Erected in 1999.

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The Biltmore Hotel: 11 Dorrance Street.

The Green Book listing reveals a key aspect of the hotel’s history that has never been told: that it was open occupancy. Between 1947 and 1955, African-Americans were welcomed there and could avail themselves of the hotel’s many services. These services included a drugstore, printer, postal-telegraph office, a barber shop, gift shop, cigar stand, public stenographer, multiple clothing stores, and six different restaurants. It would have been a key destination for African-Americans travelers during this time. The Biltmore was designed by Warren and Wetmore and constructed in 1922. It was the first major hotel constructed in Providence. The hotel was legendary during Prohibition, mainly because Rhode Island was so lax in enforcing the anti-drinking laws. The hotel quickly became a Big Band-era hot spot, hosting the likes of Benny Goodman and Jimmy Dorsey. As time passed, the Biltmore kept with the times, hosting John and Jackie Kennedy, Audrey Hepburn, and Rocky Marciano, among others. Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman have also graced its doors. At one point, one might have even seen a handsome young senator by the name of Joe Biden. The hotel was particularly famous for the Bacchante Girls, scantily-clad waitresses who served the “banquettes” in the Bacchante Room. After being summoned to a table by a button, the Bacchante girls passed through the bar, where pink lighting streamed up through the bar’s glass floor through their diaphanous skirts, and showed off their legs. The Biltmore’s relationship with its African-American clients has yet to be fully understood. Among the Rhode Island Green Book sites, it stands out as a meeting place and as a public site. It can’t have accidentally been listed, especially for all those years. Further research is definitely needed.

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Fox Point

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This early neighborhood is where Black seamen and slaves served the maritime industry. Later, it was the first neighborhood for newly arrived Cape Verdeans, many of whom worked as longshoremen.

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= India Point: Point of entry for Cape Verdean Windjammers that brought passengers and cargo to New England.

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= Cape Verdean Historical Marker: India Point Park. See more here: 

https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=75995

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+ = Sheldon Street Baptist Church: 51 Sheldon St. Founded 1886. North America’s first Cape Verdean church. 1886 - Sheldon Street Mission organized under the sponsorship of Central Congregational Church. It was the first Cape Verdean church in the US. In 1949 it becomes it own entity. Church built 1904.

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= Barros Gallery: 198 Ives Street. Artist Matthew Barros used his home as an art gallery.

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Alexander P. Niger House: 91 Hope Street. Niger, an accomplished Black typesetter who worked in the Providence printing trade as early as 1850, and was a founder of the Providence Typographical Union, No. 33 in 1857, the first Black man to be admitted to such a union in the country, owned this house from 1893 to 1898. The  house was built in 1826 by abolitionist William Alpin, secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society in Providence. Niger's gravestone is located at Locust Grove Cemetery in the Elmwood section of Providence.

https://gowdey.ppsri.org/gowdey/Hope%20Street/91%20Hope%20Street%20-%20William_Aplin_House.pdf

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Moses and Mary Jane Hampton Home: 22 Fremont Street. In late November 1884, a meeting was held here which resulted in the foundation of Ebenezer Baptist Church.

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India Point Park: 201 India Street. This area was the former working port of Providence. India Point and the larger Fox Point neighborhood, has been a major point of entry and exit for people and goods since the Colonial period. There were wharfs, distilleries, ropewalks, warehouses, snack bars, candle factories and a hospital. Ships were built, repaired, loaded and unloaded right here. This was a major location for labor in Providence, including that of enslaved and free Black people. 

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John and Elizabeth Smith House: 244 Transit Street (formerly 135 Transit Street). John Smith, a servant in the Carrington Family household, and Elizabeth, a highly respected educator, built this house in 1847, vacating it several years later for a larger house at 22 East Street.

https://ppsri.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/10-244-135-Transit-2022-Kate-Blankenship-scaled.jpg

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Occomy Residence: 85 John Street. Mr. & Mrs. Walter Occomy lived here from about 1915 until at least 1940. Occomy worked as a carpenter, waiter and butler for Providence families. See his obituary here: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/28467965/the-new-york-age-new-york-new-york/

https://rhodetour.org/items/show/420?tour=48&index=1

 

Abner Hall House: 116 Hope Street (1825-28). Christiana Carteaux Bannister lived here in the back following the death of her husband, Edward. The house was owned by her niece. 

Marker: Public Street​​​