CRISPUS ATTUCKS ORPHANAGE AND OLD FOLKS’ HOME

Reverend J. W. King of St. Paul’s African Mission and later Industrial Mission Church (1903-1906) and his wife, Mrs. Fannie King, African American migrant from Illinois, established the “Crispus Attucks Industrial School and Colored Old Folks’ and Orphans’ Home” in January 1906. Although the Kings were African Methodist Episcopal missionaries, the Crispus Attucks Home was a non-denominational institution. It was originally located at 228 East Acker Street before moving to a former farm at Randolph and Brimhall Streets in 1910. In 1917, the orphanage disbanded. The same year, the home moved to 469 Collins Street, on the east side of Saint Paul, and remained there until it closed in 1967. The home’s primary mission was to improve and support the living, social, and industrial conditions of people of color. It provided housing for men, women, and children and held an industrial-type school for boys. Periodically, it supplied food and clothing for the community’s disadvantaged. The organization was self-sustaining within the African American community. It kept its own livestock, grew its own produce, and regularly fundraised through performances and events. Several African American congregations in the community also contributed regular tithes. Its board of trustees was composed of members of the community at random and without regard to wealth or social standing. In history, Crispus Attucks is said to have been the first casualty in the Boston Massacre of 1770. A man of African and Native American descent, his story became popularized in the nineteenth-century abolitionist movement.