Emery T. Morris was a prominent member of the Niagara Movement, an early civil rights organization. The movement represented blacks who advocated political and social freedom and immediate equality for all, in opposition to the accommodationist views of Booker T. Washington. Although Morris never went to college and worked for most of his life as a druggist, porter and stationary steam engineer, he assembled one of the most extensive antislavery libraries in New England. Students often visit his house.
Today this historical site is a residential building.