As we celebrate Black heritage this month, we are introducing you to women who have helped shape our communities in Boston.
Each Monday in February, we shared a new profile. Watch each segment below.
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Alfreda Harris
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Alfreda Harris won four college basketball championships as head coach for Roxbury Community College, renowned for her no-nonsense approach.
Speaking with NBC10 Boston, she referred to her style as "tough love."
Beyond the court, Harris has been a champion of children for more than 60 years, spending 20 of them on the Boston School Committee.
"My goal was to continue to help young people as I was helped, and to make sure that they would be able to do the things that I wasn't able to do," Harris said.
Rubina Ann Guscott
Born in 1900 in Jamaica, Rubina Ann Guscott came to Boston through Ellis Island in 1920, her granddaughter, Lisa Guscott Wells, tells NBC10 Boston.
"She understood what it meant to uplift people," Wells said.
Living to the age of 102, when Guscott died in 2002, her fight for social, economic and educational equality passed from one generation to the next.
A four-story building in Roxbury's Grove Hall now bears Guscott's name.
Mildred Hailey
Mildred Hailey changed and improved countless lives in Boston.
The Jamaica Plain woman spoke to the souls of those living in public housing, becoming the executive director of the nation's first tenant-run public housing development.
Hailey advocated for people in projects to have access to drug treatment facilities and day care centers.
A decade after her death in 2015 at the age of 82, Hailey's work continues to be felt.
The Boston Housing Authority operates the Mildred C. Hailey Apartments in Jamaica Plain in her honor.
Thelma Burns
Before her death from cancer in 2022, community activist Thelma Burns was considered a living legend in Boston.
Her legacy still looms large.
Burns served on the board of directors for Action Boston Community Development, or ABCD, for over 35 years. For 28, she was METCO director for Belmont Public Schools.
"We serve because we have a deep love for our community and for our children," Burns said at an ABCD event.
In addition to her three daughters, she was an inspiring figure for some local leaders. U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley called her "Auntie," while Massachusetts Rep. Chris Worrell says she was a second mother to him.
Zipporah Potter Atkins
There's a story behind a work of art standing on the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston's North End.
It represents the house of Zipporah Potter Atkins -- the first recorded Black person to own land and a home in what would eventually become the United States.
The child of enslaved parents, Potter lived in the 17th century.
Historians weren't aware of Potter's story until 2010, when Vivian Johnson, professor emeritus at Boston University, uncovered documents showing that Potter had bought the home on the anniversary of her father's death.
Audrey Lopez, director and curator of public art for the Greenway, wants to preserve Potter's legacy.
"I really think that this sculpture going to ground is a way of keeping accurate records here in Boston," she said. "To showcase Zipporah's history, to amplify it here in Boston's public spaces, is really important."
