Mass Moments reminds us that on this day January 4, 1884, Harry Haskell Lew – also known as Bucky Lew – was born in Lowell in 1884 to an African-American family with a long and illustrious history in Massachusetts. His great-great-grandfather, Barzillai Lew – a free black man who purchased the freedom of his future wife for $400 – served in the Revolutionary War. His grandparents home in Lowell was a stop on the Underground Railroad. His father, William Lew, was a delegate to the 1891 Equal Rights Convention in Boston. Bucky Lew would be the first black man to play in a professional basketball game. His siblings would also break some barriers. His sister Theresa graduated from Lowell High School as salutatorian, became a teacher, and later received a law degree. His brother Girard was a football star at the University of Massachusetts Amherst; he taught school and later co-founded the DuSable Museum in Chicago, the nation’s first museum of African American history and art.