Mattapan
Mattapan is a residential neighborhood in the southern part of Boston, Massachusetts, bordered by Dorchester to the north, Hyde Park to the west, Milton to the south, and Roslindale to the northwest. Originally named by Indigenous people long before European settlement, Mattapan has undergone dramatic demographic transformation over the course of the twentieth century, shifting from a predominantly Jewish enclave in the mid-1900s to a neighborhood that today is majority Black. Its history reflects many of the broader tensions of urban America — racial change, economic displacement, school desegregation conflicts, and community resilience — making it one of Boston's most historically layered neighborhoods.
Origins and Early History
The name Mattapan has its roots in the language and culture of the Indigenous peoples who inhabited the region long before European colonization. In the early 1600s, the area that would become Mattapan was home to a community of Native Americans known as the Mattahunt Tribe.[1] The neighborhood was originally named by the Neponset Native American tribe in the 1600s.[2] More specifically, the name Mattapan originated with the Neponset Tribe of the Massachusett Indians, a tribe of the broader Algonquian-speaking peoples who inhabited the greater Boston region.[3]
The Neponset River, which forms a natural boundary in the southern reaches of the neighborhood, was central to the lives of these Indigenous communities. The word "Mattapan" itself is generally understood to be an Algonquian-language place name, reflecting the deep Indigenous heritage that predates the city of Boston by centuries. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, Mattapan's character had been transformed many times over — from Indigenous settlement, to colonial-era farmland, to streetcar suburb, to an urban neighborhood shaped by waves of immigration and racial change.[4]
Jewish Settlement and Mid-Century Character
By the mid-twentieth century, Mattapan had developed into a significant center of Jewish life in Boston. The neighborhood's Wellington Hill district, in particular, was a well-established Jewish residential area, with synagogues, community institutions, and small businesses that served the local population. In 1960, Wellington Hill was separated by more than two miles from well-established areas of African-American residency, and by more than one mile of Jewish settlement from those areas.[5]
Mattapan's Jewish community during this period was part of a broader Jewish presence across the neighborhoods of Dorchester and Roxbury. Scholars have examined the patterns by which Jewish residents moved outward from Boston's urban core into neighborhoods like Mattapan and, subsequently, into suburban communities. According to research published by Harvard University Press, the exodus of middle-class and upper-middle-class Jewish residents from Dorchester and Roxbury began in the early 1920s and continued steadily for decades.[6] Several factors contributed to this shift, including socioeconomic mobility, the structure of Jewish communal institutions, and the relatively lower costs associated with leaving urban neighborhoods — factors that differed markedly from those facing Catholic communities in adjacent areas.
The contrast between Jewish and Catholic patterns of neighborhood attachment and departure formed a defining dynamic in Boston's inner suburbs during this era. Catholic communities, particularly Irish and Italian families, tended to remain more anchored to specific parishes and neighborhoods. Jewish residents, whose communal institutions were more portable and whose rates of upward economic mobility were generally higher, moved toward the suburbs at a comparatively faster pace.[7]
Racial Transformation and the Boston Housing Crisis
By the 1970s, Mattapan had undergone profound demographic change. Where the neighborhood had been predominantly Jewish only a generation before, it had become predominantly Black — a transformation driven by a combination of redlining, blockbusting, discriminatory banking practices, and the broader pressures of racial change that swept through American cities during this period. These forces were not unique to Mattapan, but they played out with particular intensity there given the rapidity of the transition.
By the mid-1970s, the contrast between Mattapan and its neighboring community of Hyde Park illustrated the stark racial geography that had taken shape in Boston's southern neighborhoods. Hyde Park was described as almost entirely white, populated mainly by blue-collar Irish and Italian families. Mattapan, by contrast, was mostly Black.[8] Whatever racial and cultural differences existed between the two communities, they were neighbors — separated by geography but divided by the social forces of mid-century Boston.[9]
School Desegregation and the Busing Crisis
In the fall of 1974, Mattapan became one of several Boston neighborhoods caught in the tumult surrounding court-ordered school desegregation and the Boston busing crisis. A federal judge had ordered the Boston Public Schools to desegregate through mandatory busing, and the implementation of that order sparked violence and protests across the city.
In Mattapan, the neighborhood was drawn into the conflict in September 1974, when Black youths gathered outside the Lewenberg Middle School, preparing to confront buses carrying white students into the area.[10] The incident was part of a broader pattern of racial clashes that erupted across Boston in the early weeks of the desegregation order's enforcement. The violence was not confined to any single community; incidents involving both white and Black students and residents were documented throughout the city during this period.
The busing crisis represented a turning point in Boston's civic life and left lasting marks on neighborhoods like Mattapan, reinforcing residential segregation even as the courts attempted to dismantle it in public schools. The episode reflected the deep tensions that had accumulated over decades of discriminatory housing policy, economic inequality, and political conflict over the future of the city's schools.
Geography and Neighborhood Boundaries
Mattapan occupies a section of Boston's southern tier, bordered by several distinct communities. To the north lies Dorchester, with which Mattapan shares a long and intertwined history. Hyde Park lies to the west. To the south, the neighborhood borders the town of Milton, a suburban community that sits just beyond the city limits. Roslindale is to the northwest.
The Neponset River forms part of the neighborhood's southern boundary, a geographic feature that has defined the area since the time of its earliest Indigenous inhabitants. Mattapan Square, the neighborhood's commercial center, sits at the junction of several major streets and serves as the heart of local retail and community activity. The Mattapan Trolley — formally known as the Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line — connects the neighborhood to the broader MBTA transit network, running along a dedicated right-of-way that has served the area for generations.
Community and Demographics
Mattapan today is a predominantly Black neighborhood, with a significant population of Caribbean-American residents, including communities with roots in Haiti, Jamaica, and other Caribbean nations. This demographic composition reflects immigration patterns of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, as Boston attracted large numbers of Caribbean immigrants who settled in Mattapan and adjacent neighborhoods.
The neighborhood has a strong tradition of community organizing and civic engagement. Local organizations, churches, and community groups have worked over the years to address issues including housing affordability, public safety, youth programming, and economic development. The area's parks — including Harambee Park and portions of the Blue Hills Reservation accessible from the neighborhood's edges — provide green space in what is otherwise a densely settled urban environment.
Public Safety
Like many urban neighborhoods, Mattapan has experienced challenges related to public safety and gun violence. In January 2023, Tyler Lawrence, a 13-year-old who lived with his mother in Norwood and was visiting his grandparents in Mattapan, was killed in the neighborhood.[11] The case drew significant public attention. Csean Skerritt was subsequently charged with the fatal shooting; as of early 2026, Skerritt's legal proceedings were ongoing, with reports indicating he sought to be returned to a Boston jail while his case continued.[12]
In a separate incident, a man was fatally shot in a car in Mattapan, an event that was among the incidents covered by local media in the period surrounding early 2026.[13] Community leaders and elected officials have repeatedly called for increased investment in violence prevention programs and youth services as part of broader efforts to address the root causes of gun violence in the neighborhood.
Relationship to Broader Boston History
Mattapan's history is inseparable from the larger narrative of Boston's urban development. The neighborhood's arc — from Indigenous territory, to colonial farmland, to immigrant enclave, to a Black neighborhood shaped by discriminatory policy and demographic change — mirrors the trajectories of many American urban communities in the twentieth century. The forces that shaped Mattapan, including redlining, blockbusting, urban renewal, and the politics of school desegregation, were not local aberrations but expressions of national patterns playing out in a specific place.
The scholarship examining Mattapan and its adjacent neighborhoods, particularly the work exploring why Jewish residents left Boston while Catholic communities remained, has contributed to broader academic conversations about race, religion, and the nature of urban attachment in American cities. These questions remain relevant as Boston continues to grapple with issues of housing affordability, demographic change, and equitable access to city services.
Mattapan's ongoing story is one of a neighborhood with deep roots and a complex past, working to define its future on its own terms.