Matthew W. Bullock

Matthew Washington Bullock (September 11, 1881 – December 17, 1972) was an American football player and coach, college professor and administrator, and lawyer. Played high school football at Everett High School in Everett, Massachusetts and was captain-coach in 1899, becoming presumably the first African-American to coach a predominantly white high school. He served as the head football coach at Massachusetts Agricultural College—now the University of Massachusetts Amherst—in 1904 (becoming presumably the first African-American to coach a predominantly white college) and again from 1907 to 1908, at Morehouse College from 1909 to 1911, and at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University from 1924 to 1926.

Bullock was born on September 11, 1881 to two former slaves. His family moved to Massachusetts, where he attended Everett High School. Bullock enrolled at Dartmouth College in 1900. At Dartmouth he played on the varsity football team for three years and ran track for four. After graduating from Dartmouth in 1904, Bullock attended Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1907. He taught economics and sociology at Morehouse and was a dean at Alabama A&M. Bullock practiced law in Atlanta and Boston. In 1927, Alvan T. Fuller, Governor of Massachusetts, appointed Bullock to the State Board of Parole and the Advisory Board of Pardons. In 1945, James Forrestal, United States Secretary of the Navy, appointed Bullock to a commission to study racial conditions among enlisted men in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II. The commission's report initiated racial integration in the United States Navy.