Freedom House is located in an area sometimes referred to as Grove Hall that lies along Blue Hill Ave. at the border between the Roxbury and Dorchester neighborhoods of Boston.
[1] The mission of Freedom House is to promote economic self-sufficiency and social justice for residents in historically underserved neighborhoods through targeted educational development, increased civic and political engagement and progressive cultural advocacy.
An interracial preschool, one of few in the city, was established[2] and Freedom House participated in a Black-Jewish Roundtable fostering business ties and friendships between black and Jewish entrepreneurs.
[6] In the area of education, Freedom House administered Project Reach, supported by a private donation, which gave scholarship funds for minority students to go to college.
In the years before court-ordered desegregation, Freedom House also raised money to support Operation Exodus, a voluntary desegregation project that bused predominantly African American students from overcrowded schools in Roxbury and Dorchester to predominantly white, underenrolled schools in other parts of Boston.
The Institute began as a means of information dissemination to African-American families, as well as to ensure the safety of school children being bused to neighborhoods attempting to block the desegregation order.
[5] The Institute grew to become a locus of community action, offering tutoring and teacher training, and providing a forum for communication between families and city administrators.
The Center has held galas, fashion shows and tea parties to raise money for causes that it supported, celebrated the anniversaries and birthdays of notables like Edward Brooke, an African-American U.S.