Hidden History of Boston

Book excerpt: Boston is one of America's most historic cities, but it has quite a bit of unseen past. Riotous mobs celebrated their hatred of the pope in an annual celebration called Pope's Night during the colonial era. A centuries-long turf war played out on the streets of quiet Chinatown, ending in the massacre of five men in a back alley in 1991. William Monroe Trotter published the Boston Guardian, an independent African American newspaper, and was a beacon of civil rights activism at the turn of the century. Author and historian Dina Vargo shines a light into the cobwebbed corners of Boston's hidden history.