African american trail project

about the project

Dr. Kendra T. Field | Co-founder

The African American Trail Project is a collaborative public history initiative housed at Tufts University. Originally inspired by the scholarship of Tufts Professor Gerald R. Gill (1948-2007) and driven by faculty and student research, this project maps African American and African-descended public history sites across greater Boston, and throughout Massachusetts. The African American Trail Project aims to develop African American historical memory and intergenerational community, placing present-day struggles for racial justice in the context of greater Boston’s historic African American, Black Native, and diasporic communities.

Dr. Jessie Gideon Garnett (1897-1976) was the first African-American woman to graduate from Tufts School of Dental Medicine and the first to practice dentistry in Boston.