Matthew Washington Bullock (September 11, 1881 – December 17, 1972) was an American lawyer, politician and human rights activist.
Biography Childhood Matthew Washington Bullock was born September 11, 1881, in Dabney, North Carolina. His parents, Jesse and Amanda (Sneed) Bullock* were born enslaved. In 1889, the family moved to Boston "with seven children and a ten dollar bill.”*
Bullock attended public schools and in 1896, he graduated from Everett Center Grammar School. He then attended Everett High School, where he was the first African-American captain of the high school team as well as captaining the hockey("ice polo") and baseball teams. Bullock was recognized as among the best athletes of the school. His brother Henry was also a star athlete at Everett. Bullock was listed as a member of the Center School Alumni association of Fall 1899.
In June 1900, the US Census Records recorded that six children between the ages of 29 and 15 lived with Jesse and Joseph. Jesse and Joseph, the eldest, were day laborers although they have also been unemployed some months of the previous year. Jesse and Amanda were listed as illiterate while all children were listed as literate.
Dartmouth College
Bullock was to start his time at Dartmouth College in 1901. His father sent him $50 for his tuition (equivalent to about $1,300 in 2021) and enrolled him at Dartmouth College. He had to start working to pay his tuitions. He enrolled at Dartmouth in the autumn and was elected to the Glee Club for his singing abilities, as well as serving on the track team for all four years. Bullock was the first African American to play football at Dartmouth, but he played a game his freshman year. He finished second in the high jump at an event that year.
The following year he started as a defensive end on the football team, and played well. In his Sophomore year he won first place in the broad jump and was successful in football. Bullock sang as a baritone soloist at a Vermont Church in April, 1903. He had greater success in his junior year, despite playing only the first six games.
In his senior year Bullock was on the varsity football team and achieved national recognition. He was part of the Dartmouth football team that defeated Harvard at the dedication event of the Dartmouth stadium in later 1903. A picture of Bullock was printed in a November issue of the Boston Post at the age of 22. A week later Bullock was refused accommodations during a game at Princeton University and also called out during the game; events that were covered in newspapers in various states across the nation.* He broke a collarbone in the first play of this third game of the year in this Princeton game and it was widely believed he had been targeted. Dartmouth cut athletic ties with Princeton for several years. This was all during Woodrow Wilson's presidency at Princeton there and his investment in segregationally practices in the school. However Bullock was not named an All-American despite qualifying. His senior year he was also a member Palaeopity Senior Society as a distinguished individual, other by-invitation boards and committees, and was the associate editor of The Aegis.
Bullock graduated in 1904, with a Bachelor of Arts degree and scholastic and athletic distinctions, but only honorable mention in Walter Camp's All-American football listing for 1904. Sports commentator and NAACP leader Edwin Henderson in 1939 observed of Bullock's performance in 1901-3 "Why Bullock did not receive All-American selection has never been understood. Bullock was one of the brainiest men of football ability the game has ever had.” Indeed Bullock released his own list of All-American footballers in 1911.
Bullock then attended Harvard Law School 1904-1907 ultimately earning an LLB degree while James Barr Ames was Dean of the school. Along the way he paid is tuition by coaching football. He soon coached for the Massachusetts Agricultural and Mechanical College (now University of Massachusetts at Amherst) starting in the fall of 1904 and was credited with the comment "the outlook is the most encouraging in years" in the school newspaper. By that winter it said it "has been without doubt the most successful (season) in the history of the college” credited to Bullock after defeating 5 larger institutions and play in the championship bout and the team presented Bullock with an inscribed watch fob and charm. He was the first black football coach of an integrated college team and had a winning record, and was one of a handful of African-American football figures in the eastern white colleges. He then coached at Malden High School in 1905, as its first black football coach and was presented with a bonus for his improvement of the team in the year.* They were undefeated early in 1906-7 school year.
Bullock finished at Harvard in the summer of 1907, with a Bachelor of Law degree studied at Cornell University, and returned to Agriculture & Mechanics College where he was set to coach more seasons. There was also a report he was heading out to Oklahoma to practice law. However by early 1909 he was in the South. That May his father died while the family was living on Winter Street.
Atlanta service In 1908, Bullock accepted a position at Morehouse College (then Atlanta Baptist College) as athletic director and teacher.
In 1910, he was thanked in the preface of a book The Negro in Literature and Art by Benjamin Griffith Brawley. In September 1910, he married Katherine Wright in Boston. Katherine was born in Middlesboro, Kentucky, to Peter Wright and Julie Heatherlee. The Bullocks continued to live in Atlanta and by 1911 he had worked for three years in the Interscholastic Athletic Association's field games,* and was faculty at the Atlanta Baptist College.* His work in athletics was called an example of an HBCU "farm school" through which athletes could earn a place in white schools. Ultimately he taught Latin, History and Social Sciences serving for 4 years with distinction. He then worked as a lawyer in Atlanta from 1912 to 1915, including submitting an amendment to the school charter of 1913 to change the name of the college from the Atlanta Baptist College to Morehouse College. He was again thanked by Brawley for being one of the reviewers of his book A short history of the American Negro published in 1913.
Bullock then served two years, from 1915 to 1917, as dean of The State Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes—now known as Alabama A&M University—in Normal, Alabama. In 1916, he coached the football team at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.
World War I and YMCA service Bullock was registered with the Massachusetts State Bar in August 1917, and in February 1918 he was resident in Roxbury, a neighborhood in Boston, working as a lawyer.
He tried to volunteer to serve in a combat unit for World War I but was called "too old" to serve about age 36, and had a heart murmur, but worked via the YMCA's war effort, seeking to work in France and England. He was marked 6’1” tall on his passport application and his first witness was a clerk of the 1st Circuit Court of Boston. His mother was living with his family.
He was booked to leave from New York on the French SS Rochambeau on February 20 and appointed a secretary of the National War Council of the YMCA of the US to serve with American troops, however he served as a YMCA Educational Secretary at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, first, initially as a breakfast guest of former law practice associate Charles Ford. He worked at Camp Meade to coach athletics, led singing, and taught French language. After 3 months he went to France with the 369th US Infantry (aka 15th NY Regiment) and served as a Physical Director for 15 months. He was one of eight such YMCA Secretaries. Bullock had a staff of four assistants one of which was a colored woman who was protested of in the military based on issues of southern-extraction army officials in Bordeaux. The situation caused an initial limit of participation of women to just three to act as nurses for 150,000 soldiers. He was an organizing personality in the Leave area in part because of his fame in sports but also his service with the women working in the circumstances.
Bullock and another of the YMCA designée followed the 369th all the way to the banks of the Rhine leading other units and accorded distinction because of the quality of its trenches. Bullock was singled out for noting his steadfast support of the soldiers during the worst of the battle. Bullock was called of "especially valiant service” noting he "could be seen at all times making his way under tremendous shell fire that he might reach his men with necessary supplies; … (and) in giving first aid to the wounded.” Bullock was recommended for the Croix de Guerre medal for leadership and bravery but it wasn't approved by the white colonel as described in the autobiography of John Hope. Hope had been stationed in Paris. Rev. Benjamin Robeson wrote about the issue in a letter to the New York Age. Robeson begins "It is not long ago that all New York anxiously, confidently bade adieu to this history-making regiment. Believing them capable, knowing them to be fearless, depending upon them to brighten the memory of their fathers, you watched, waited, and listened.…" <blockquote>I wish to speak of one who still plods the path of duty with an infectious smile, happy and patient because he knows time will dip her pen in the ink of justice and rightly reward him. </p> I refer to Secretary Bullock (we call him Matt) who wears the badge of the faithful and walks with the step of the worthy.… Just before that memorial drive of September 25 … Bullock went to Chalons, faced the authorities, and said: 'I have nothing to give my men and they storm the heights tomorrow. I must have something or I cannot go back.' (eventually received his requests and) the campaign was on. </p> Every morning as the cannon were belching, men falling and bullets whizzing, over the hill came a human form. On his back were strapped (supplies…) On he came, now and then dropping for shelter.… Men wondered why he came into that region of death. When twilight wrapped the hills in its shadows, back came the same form empty handed; weary, but game. His coming and going stopped when there was no regiment to serve. </p> He wears no Croix de Guerre upon his breast, but within his breast throbs the spirit of devotion - devotion to God, country and race. The multitudes will see no D. S. C. to testify to his courage in that hour, but listen to the reflective melody sung by the boys of the old Fifteenth and you will hear of a faithfulness and service approaching that of the lowly Nazarene. No Legion of Honor will proclaim his rank with the worthy, but as long as one member of this grand old regiment breathes the breath of life the name of Matthew W. Bullock will be heard and its worth will be sung. </p> Let us all honor the uncrowned here.</blockquote>
He had served in the Champagne and Alsace fronts of later 1917 through May 1918, and was recommended for the Croix de Guerre for the September–October battle.
Bullock arrived at Ellis Island two months later from Brest, France, on the USS Mobile noting his home residence at Sarsfield Street, Roxbury. He retired from war service June 4, 1919, and by then German was added to his language skills. He was then a member of Baptist Church, and had been paid over $1200, ($18k in 2021 dollars,) for his service.
Years later he recalled the bitter disappointment of the relatively integrated service in the military and returning home to a more deeply segregated society.
He spoke at the convention of the Northeastern Federation of Colored Women's Clubs of Maine held in Washington, D.C., speaking of the military service of soldiers in France.
Boston service in the African American Community