In 1946, when Otto Snowden moved back to Boston from New York with his wife Muriel and their newborn daughter, the couple considered leaving again. The city was being ravaged by housing and education inequality, with the neighborhood of Roxbury in dire need of community resources and support.

“We had to make a decision about whether we were going to run away from here … and solve our personal problems,” Muriel Snowden said in a 1977 interview with Harvard University’s Schlesinger Library and the Black Women Oral History Project. But they decided to stay. “Otto had been here all these years, why should we go someplace else and start from scratch?”

The couple wanted to follow an old saying by Booker T. Washington about “putting down your buckets where you are,” and “that’s what we decided to do,” Muriel stated. They created Freedom House, a community organization aimed at providing a “way to pull this community together,” she said.

In December 1949, the couple formally incorporated Freedom House with the mission to “improve the civic, educational, recreational, and general welfare of the entire Upper Roxbury community.” Over the decades, Freedom House has run numerous programs aimed at advocacy and equity like the Roxbury Youth Council and mobilized communities to become politically and civically engaged in city “urban renewal efforts.”

Now, Freedom House is celebrating its 75th anniversary. It’s a big milestone for the organization that still provides essential services and resources to youth in the area. The past few years have been tumultuous. In 2022, GBH reported that the organization was vacating its historic location at 14 Crawford Street because it couldn’t afford to save the building, then 122 years old. Freedom House moved into a new space just down the road.

The move was bittersweet for current CEO Charmaine Arthur. She has been in the position for two years but has worked at the organization for more than fifteen years. When her family immigrated to Boston from Trinidad and Tobago, they lived down the street from the original Freedom House building. Arthur remembers attending events as a youth and frequenting the organization as a rising senior in high school.

“That auditorium at 14 Crawford Street was a very popular place for our community and for young people to go and enjoy themselves,” said Arthur.

That goal hasn’t changed. Much of Freedom House’s programming now centers youth, from ninth graders to college seniors. Initiatives like the Summer Learning Institute connect Boston Public School students with educational, mental health, and employment resources, while others like Freedom House University offer students access to dual enrollment opportunities and classes at local colleges along with paid employment.

“We are focused on advocating for equity and quality education for our students,” said Arthur. “We also focus on the social and emotional development of our young people. Mental health is a priority.”

Kevin Bobby Williams and Nicola Webb were once Freedom House youth utilizing the organization’s services. Now, they are staff members. Webb says Freedom House and Arthur helped shift things in her life. “You are embraced, encouraged, exposed to new opportunities, new language. It has helped me to become the woman that I am.”

This photo of Otto and Muriel Snowden in front of Freedom House was used in a 10th anniversary report in 1959.
Courtesy of the Freedom House Inc, Records at Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections

Freedom House has welcomed many famous visitors in its 75 years. Sammy Davis Jr. came by in 1964 with his wife May Britt.
Courtesy Northeastern University Archives via Arielle Gray/WBUR

Williams and Webb helped steward an archive project that looks at Freedom House’s past. Freedom House youth and staff sifted through old documents and photos that are part of Freedom House’s extensive archive that is stored at Northeastern University.

“The first people we wanted to hear from were the people who attended Freedom House and who worked at Freedom House,” said Williams. “We’ve seen the old building. We’ve seen the opening of Freedom House and all of the other documents that we found.” In collaboration with Northeastern’s Reckonings Project, Freedom House youth created zines in response to the materials they looked at.

The extensive reach of Freedom House’s impact is partly captured through the breadth of its archives. A thick folder is dedicated to recommendations that the Snowdens wrote recommending individuals, many of them Freedom House youth or associates, for various employment positions, fellowships, and scholarships.

Two guest books overflowing with signatures help visualize the many people who passed through the Freedom House doors. Local hero Melnea Cass was on the Freedom House board of directors along with Dr. Howard Thurman. Photos and news clippings show Martin Luther King Jr. attending a 1958 Freedom House lunch in his honor and John F. Kennedy at Freedom House’s 10th anniversary reception. In 1964, Sammy Davis Jr. was another famous visitor.

Beyond the many recognizable names associated with Freedom House, the organization is best known for its extensive community work. Freedom House offered numerous programs, events, and resources for both youth and adults. This included Project REACH, a youth development and scholarship program that supported Boston students of color in graduating high school and college, and the Goldenaires of Freedom House, a long-running club for senior residents.

Freedom House also organized trips for Black youth to Africa and Europe and mobilized the community to combat urban blight through things like neighborhood cleanup programs. They even established a community credit union.

The team conducted more than 40 interviews with former Freedom House staff, alumni and others whose lives were touched by the organization. Webb photographed the interviewees. “When I’m shooting folks, they start smiling, some people get emotional,” Webb recalled.  “It’s like a time lapse for them to go back and remember a moment where this organization impacted their life.”

The interviews and the archival materials will be compiled into a book that Freedom House plans to publish at the end of December. While the book does take a look at the past, Charmaine Arthur is eager for others to remember the present and future.

“Our kids are struggling,” she said. “They’re struggling academically, they’re struggling emotionally, they’re struggling socially, they’re struggling spiritually, they’re just struggling. So…how do we respond to that need?”

Arthur hopes that the project inspires others to get involved when it comes to youth and community-centered advocacy. Places like Freedom House have a ripple effect, she says. “So many amazing young people who came through these doors are now impacting the world. Not just their communities, but out here doing amazing things.”

From its first tiny office on Humboldt Ave. to surviving the 1960 fire that gutted 14 Crawford to its current location, it’s clear that Freedom House has been, and is much more than, a building. In her Schlesinger Library interview, Muriel pointed out that Freedom House isn’t just a physical site — “it lives in the community.”

Decades later, when asked to describe what Freedom House has meant to her, Nicola Webbe unknowingly echoed Muriel’s words: “It’s where a house, for many people, becomes a home.”

This article was published by WBUR on Dec. 16. The Reporter and WBUR share content through a media partnership.