Dr. Robert Bellinger is an educator and historian with a BA in Psychology and Black Studies from Amherst College, an Ed.M. from Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a Ph.D. in history from Boston College. As an educator, he has taught at the pre-school, elementary school, middle-school, high-school, and university levels. After a teaching career of almost half a century Dr. Bellinger is now an independent public historian whose work is interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and comparative.

Dr. Bellinger believes that all people have agency and thus have played a role in the creation of history. By giving voice to those who are often not heard and recognizing the names and identities of those who have not been the focus of many visions of the past, his work is engaged in acts of reclamation and reification. He is also interested in developing conversations between oral and archival voices by making use of genealogical research techniques and utilizing music and cultural arts studies. His work in West Africa has increased his interest in exploring cultural traditions as a force for change and bridging the distance between the past and the present.

Publications

Books & Imprints

Monuments, Memorials and Historic Sites, New England’s Visible Black History in Photographs. Photographs and Text by Robert A. Bellinger, Ph.D. AAHGS New England Chapter, Inc., 2017

Articles

Prince Estabrook: From Lexington Green to the Hudson River Valley, in Discover the Battle Road Today, Voyager Publishing, DiscoverConcordMA.com, 2025

Pompey Blackman, (1755-1783), Setting the Record Straight, AAHGS-NE Newsletter, Volume 24, Issue 1, Fall 2023

What’s in A Name? The Gunnery School Bulletin, December 2019

Dancing Through Time and Space: African Dance and the Géwël Tradition of Senegal at Suffolk University, Journal of Pan African Studies (on-line), Volume 6 Number 5, 2013, http://www.jpanafrican.com/docs/vol6no5/6.5-Bellinger.pdf

The Géwël Tradition Project: Supporting A Living Tradition, African Arts, Spring 2013, Vol. 46, No.

The Black Patriots of the American Revolution Episode 9: Pompey Blackman

I am featured in this documentary about Lexington resident and Revolutionary War veteran Pompey Blackman, co-produced by ABCL, Tricons 2 Red Tails and LexMedia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udQqsydkXBY

Make it

People of African Descent and Golf in the United States, 1739-1939, A Brief History, 2026

This publication is in celebration and recognition of the centennial of the founding of Mapledale Golf and Country Club by Robert H. Hawkins in Stow, Massachusetts in 1926.

Boards & Memberships

-The African American Historical and Genealogical Society, New England Chapter (1998-present)

-Afriterra, Inc. Board Member, Boston, MA (1999-present)

-The Colonial Society of Massachusetts (2010-present)

-Massachusetts Historical Society Fellow (2010-present)

-Robbins House Advisory Board Member, Concord, MA (2016-present)

-Frederick Gunn School Board Member (2016-present)

-Shirley-Eustis House Board of Advisors, Roxbury, MA (2019-present)

-Middleton Place Board of Trustees, Charleston, SC (2023-present)

-Sons of the American Revolution (2023-present)

-Rediscover Mapledale Board Member (2025-present)

-Slave Legacy History Coalition (2026)

-Lexington History Museums Board Member (2026)

-Lexington Historic Districts Commission (2025-present)

-Concord Black History Trail Advisory Committee (2026)