I am director of outreach at the american antiquarian society. I want to welcome you to this talk, the first in our series of spring programs. You can find out more by picking up a brochure at the front desk. You can join our mailing list to stay informed of upcoming programs i filling out information on your evaluation sheet jade you can pick one up if you do not have one of those, you can pick one up at the front desk. As many of you know, we are a National Research library of American History and culture Whose Mission is to share the printed record of what is now the United States, portions of canada and the british west indies. We collect anything and everything within these parameters. From graphic prints to newspapers and periodicals, to pamphlets and books. We use these as the basis for all of our programs which bring scholars, artists, the general public, and teachers and students together to participate in workshops and a variety of other programs about pre20thcentury america. Tonights lecture is part of a series of programs we are offering tactic to an exhibition connected to an exhibition the sid the society has court night correlated called beyond midnight, paul revere. The exhibition is on display through june 7. One part is at the west or art western art museum Worchester Art Museum and the other part is at the concord art museum. The exhibition will conclude its tour in arkansas where it will be on display from july 4 through october 26, 2020. The exhibition was curated by lauren hughes, director of fellowship and the center for historic american visual culture. The exhibition and the ancillary programming offer a fresh perspective on the legendary Midnight Rider by showcasing power of years many skills as a craftsman and entrepreneur. Although we know him for his revolutionary activities, he was known as a silversmith and engraver and the First American producer of copper sheet. Rolled copper sheets. We would like to thank the sponsors of the exhibition including the henry Lewis Foundation and the center for american historical visionary culture. Visual culture. We hold the most complete collection of reveres work on paper. The most famous collection is called the bloody massacre. It was reveres rendering of the event they came to be known as the boston massacre, which marked the 20 50th anniversary last week. Tonight speaker will tell us about the shifting role Crispus Attucks has played in the story of the American Revolution and the story of the nation he is the professor of history at Western University specializing in africanAmerican History, collective memory and historical writing. He is a fulbright specialist in american studies and has received awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the humanities, the study of the united state history and denied and the United States department of education among others. His publications include, first martyr of liberty, Crispus Attucks in american memory, on which todays talk is based. Festivals of freedom, memory and meaning in africanamerican celebrations 1808 through 1915, and, as a coeditor the curse of cast by the slave bride, a rediscovered novel, which was named an outstanding academic novel for 2007. He has published numerous articles and book chapters such as 19thcentury black transnationalism, africanamerican response to the haitian revolution among others. Please join me in welcoming mitch kachun. [applause] professor kachun thank you. Good evening, everyone. I want to thank you all for coming out tonight. Braving whatever we might have to face in this interesting time we are living in. I am pleased and honored to talk to you this evening about my book. I want to thank kayla and all of the staff and Board Members at the american antiquarian society. I am truly honored to be invited to make this presentation at one of the premier cultural and historical institutions in the nation. It is worth noting over the next several years, we are all going to be hearing a lot about various events commemorating the American Revolution. Perhaps especially here in massachusetts were so many of those events took place. The boston massacre is considered by many to be one of the earliest events linked to the beginning of true revolutionary thinking in the colonies. I have been in the area for a week now. Participating in some of the commemorations around boston. I put in a plug for what i was consulted for, called reflecting Crispus Attucks. Which deals with crispus addicks american memory quite effectively. Please check it out. Is that better . Sorry about that. A lot of feedback, though. As the commemorations move forward, we will ponder where the American Experience has brought us. Experiment have brought us after a quarter millennium. We are going to be hearing of a lot of different versions of the events like the massacre, the tea party, the writing of the declaration and the intent of the founders and so on. Part of what has intrigued me as a historian are the ways in which different versions of our shared history are constructed to serve disparate political, cultural or ideological agendas. Everyone seems to have their own take on events as different narratives resonate with different people at different times. We all have our favorite stories. Every nation needs a story, something that tells embers of members of that nation and others who they are as people. The story americans like to tell themselves about their nation is one of freedom loving people coming from england seeking religious liberty. They prospered and grew and extended their quest for freedom by throwing off the chains of british rule based on the ideals to establish the nation based on the ideas of individualism, equality and upward mobility. Where a persons status is based solely on ability and efforts. Rather on being born into an aristocracy. The american nation is a unique nation, and exceptional nation in this narrative whose prosperity grew, attracting immigrants from across the globe who wanted to participate in the american dream. The american nation has become a great world power and melting pot where all who share the ideals and abide by the rules of the nation are welcome to share in that dream. While there is some truth to that story, it also leaves a lot out. It has been especially important for africanamericans to create their own story as a people because the mainstream american story has always ignored them and excluded them. Understanding how africanamericans over the past two and a half centuries have developed who they are and how they fit in the larger american story is one of the central questions that interest me as a historian. One of the main things ive been trying to understand over my career and is certainly one of the main themes of first martyr of liberty. Im interested in collective memory. How members arrive at a shared understanding. How do stories of the past get constructed . Who does the constructing . And why do certain stories gain widespread credibility and familiarity . Why do other stories get overlooked or forgotten . Why are certain people honored as heroes while others are villains . And others still, ignored completely . What i have tried to do in this book is examine the many different ways over the past 250 years that Crispus Attucks and by extension africanamericans in general have either been made a part of or excluded from americas understanding of the story of the American Revolution and the nation. I want to start by reading from the books opening pages. Which i hope will introduce both Crispus Attucks and the questions i explore. From the introduction, the election of barack obama began march 5, 1770 at the boston massacre with the death of Crispus Attucks. This provocative opening line from the 2009 documentary we the people is never fully explained. Viewers are left to wonder how the death of a mixed race former slave led to the election of the nations first africanamerican president over two centuries later. While the connections between obama and attucks are tenuous at best, each man has occupied that intellectual and emotional juncture at which americans attempt to understand how race has affected our understanding of what it means to be a patriot, citizen and american. These questions challenge us. First, to recognize the continuous black presence in america and American History from the 18th century to the 21st. And then to consider how americans think about africanamericans place and to ponder the process through which National Heroes and myths are constructed. The book examines how Crispus Attucks has been remembered and forgotten in the centuries long lionized and vilified in the centuries long debate over citizenship and belonging. What do we really know about him and his role in the boston massacre . There is little certainty about attucks life story. Most widely accepted the most widely accepted interpretation suggests he was born around 1723 year natick, massachusetts, a praying town of christianized indians. It is about 20 miles west of crosby. He was likely of next african and native american ancestry. He was likely a slave owned by William Brown of framingham until he liberated himself around 1750. He worked as a sailor around the docks until his role in the events of march 5, 1770. Most modern historians see the socalled boston massacre as a noteworthy event in the colonys growing disaffection with the British Empire. Available evidence confirms attucks was part of the unruly mob, with a small detachment of british soldier outside the king street customhouse where he and four white colonists were killed after threatening british guards with rocks, chunks of ice and clubs. A few days later four of the , victims were buried in a single grave in bostons granary burying ground. Patrick carr was placed in the grave with the others. Some months after that the soldiers were tried for murder. All were acquitted in only two and only two of acquitted were acquitted by manslaughter lightly punished and sent home. , thousands of american colonists and at least hundreds of bostonians were direct participants in mob actions between the early 1760s and the start of the revolution in 1775. Crispus attucks was one of those colonists and he was no more important or significant that than the rest. They on the rest. They all lead a role in moving disgruntled colonists toward a new struggle for independence. It is understandable the first person to be killed by british soldiers might hold a memorable place. But the fact that he was Crispus Attucks is happenstance. Had a been another person in the mob that day or a confrontation on another day, what that person be remember at all . Why has his name been remembered in a way those men who died alongside him have not . It makes sense to consider these questions because his incorporation into the story of the revolution was not a foregone conclusion. It was the result of a Conscious Campaign to construct an american hero, the first martyr of liberty. Just a bit from chapter one. In 1782, a man asked a question in his letters from an american farmer, what then is the american, this new man, he was not thinking about Crispus Attucks or other people of color. He was trying to explain the nature of america and the emerging american character to a european audience intrigued by this land of distant colonials who were engaged in the modern worlds first experiment in revolutionary nation making. The new man he saw coming into being was either a european or the descendent of a european. In other words, he was white. During the era of american, approximately 20 , 1 in every five people was of african birth or african descent. People like Crispus Attucks were very much a part of america. They embodied much of what was new and distinctive in the revolutionary nation. s life allowed him to see the worst of 18thcentury america. Socialnomic and vitality of growing colonies, the oppression of slavery, the intermingling of peoples and languages at atlantic seaports opportunities of life at sea, the fluidity of identity in americas formative era, and the language of liberty and National Rights that came to define the idealistic new nations served in itself. So in looking at stories that have grown around christmas at x over the past Crispus Attucks over the past 250 years, ive looked into scholarly histories, juvenile literature, public monuments, works of drama in arts,terature, visual Popular Culture, tv, movies, the internet and so on. One of the things that i found is that because there is so little evidence about who Crispus Attucks was, people have tended to make up details about him. Details about his family, his education, his religion, politics and his patriotism, things of which we have no virtually no concrete evidence. Excuse me. So, there are a lot of distorted stories about attucks floating around but people have constructed to suit their own purposes. The construction of different meanings around attucks started almost immediately. Future United States president john adams, in his role as defense attorney for the british soldiers succeeded in portraying attucks as an outsider, a threat to the social order who led the riotous mob. He claimed, appeared to have undertaken to be the hero of the night and to lead the army with banners and march them up to king street with clubs. Attucks cried, do not be afraid of them. They dont fire. Kill them. Kill them. Knock them over. He tried to knock their brains out. To have this reinforcement under the command of a mulatto fellow whose very looks were enough to terrify any person, what had not the soldiers then to fear . He, with one hand, took a bayonet, and with the other knocked the man down. ,this was the behavior of attucks, to whose mad behavior the dreadful carnage of that night is chiefly to be ascribed. Adams did his best to characterize the entire mob as a rabble that did not represent the interests of the good and peaceful people of boston. A large o part of that involved identifying attucks as a racially mixed outsider, as the ringleader. Over the next several years, of theused the memory massacre and its victims to serve their own political agendas by per train the victims as respectable, innocent citizens struck down by a tyrannical military power. The paula revere and graving, of course, is perhaps the bestknown piece of propaganda in this activity, showing the respectable and apparently white colonists being mowed down by the abusive military. There are also annual march 5, 17711783, from which features placing all blame over the horrid scene on the british tyrants. These speeches pay little attention to individuals. So, no mention of attucks, no mention of the racial makeup of the martyrs. Collectively, they were referred to as our brethren, slaughtered innocents, and fellow citizens. The implication, of course, was that they were white. Between 1771 and 1850, the boston massacre itself remained a part of the collective memory of the north american nation. Some characterized it as a key event in forging colonial unity while others preferred to distance the revolution from what they considered a disorderly riot. In either case, attucks role in racial identity remained largely ignored, even among africanamericans. Only a few scattered references to attucks appeared during the first half of the 19th century, sometimes casting him not as a hero or a patriot, but lets john adams, as a ruffian. Samuel goodrich was of the most popular and prolific historians authors of history schoolbooks during the middle decades of the 19th century. In his first book of history for children and youth, which was published in numerous editions between 1831 and 1859, he described the boston mob led by a giant of a negro named attucks. They brandished their clubs and pelted the soldiers with snowballs, abused them with all manner of harsh words, surrounded them and challenge them to fire. Fired, heoops not informed his young leaders, the irritated and unreasonable populace would have torn the soldiers to pieces. The appearance of this text and 1880sthers in the that identified attucks racially, brought him to the first time to the attention of africanamerican abolitionists. Once abolitionists learned about attucks, they made him into a revolutionary symbol. William cooper nells colored patriots of the revolution in 1855, shows attucks as the first martyr of the American Revolution, who was of and with the people and never regarded as and never was regarded as otherwise. He was the man most responsible for Crispus Attucks bursting onto the american scene in the 1860s as the fundamental example of black patriotism and virtuous citizenship. In the emerging mythology black attucksss ignored native american ancestry and presented him as a unequivocally black man who was the first to sacrifice his life on the altar of American Freedom. His identification with the nations founding and mythic image as the first martyr of liberty was a careful historical reconstruction intended to bolster africanamericans arguments for Citizenship Rights. That has been the most, and characterization of attucks ever since. The is more remarkable is rapidity of attucks rise to prominence as an africanamerican hero. Virtually unknown to black activists before the 1840s, by the 1850s, he had become one of the most widely recognized symbols of black patriotism and citizenship. Attucks prominence among black and white abolitionists grew as during the civil war, as black men donned blue uniforms and risk their lives to preserve the union and dismantle american slavery. So hes widely known in the 18th century, and received considerable attention through the reconstruction era. Interaction of the attucks argument in the boston commons in 1988, also sometimes in 1888, also sometimes referred to as the boston massacre monument, was the most publicly visible honor attucks received up to that time. It was also a turning point. While the monument was erected with black and white support but , it also drew a lot of criticism from conservative bostonians. The leader of the boston mounted a society position, declaring that the proposed monument was a waste of the publics money, maintaining that these men were rioters, not patriots. A rowdyus mulatto was person, peeled while engaged in the defiance of law. A few years later, one longtime bostonian referred to attucks as a half indianhalf negro rowdy who shouldve been strangled the day he was born. As jim crow segregation took over after the late africanamericans faced a new 1800s, and troubling reality. Thats next reading is from chapter 4 but which is titled Crispus Attucks meets jim crow. On a chill january day in 1879, william h. Palmer, an africanamerican revenue inspector awaited the birth of , his fourth child. We cannot know the conversations he, his wife, and his family may have had about naming that child. But when the baby boy came into the world, he became known as Crispus Attucks palmer. At the age of 21, crispus still palmer still lived in Norfolk County with his mother, now a widow, and with his siblings. 10 years later, crispus was married and on his own, and they had three young daughters. Inn the first baby was born 1912, he was named Crispus Attucks palmer jr. A few years later, he registered for the world war i draft, although he did not serve. By 1920, he was a widower and had moved to norfolk city, where he owned his home free and clear and worked as a clerk at the post office. Later that year crispus married , again. He and his second wife, rose, provided well for their family. The home was worth 3500. They purchased a radio and placed a high priority on education. Crispus still held his post office position, and both rose and his oldest daughter, marion, or schoolteachers. Crispus jr. Was soon off on his own adventures. He completed four years of college, an impressive achievement for a black man in the early 20th century. He was working as a film editor in the Motion Picture industry he anday, 1942, when listed in the u. S. Army to help defend the country in the war. He earned the rank of technician fifth grade and gave his life to his country in france, where he was buried. He never married or had children so we can only speculate whether he would have carried on his familys tributes to the martyr first of the revolution. The Palmer Family personifies a important aspects of the culture of racial uplift among middleclass africanamericans during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They placed a high value on family, education and economic advancement. William palmer was very likely a slave prior to 1865. In 1870, he was a domestic servant. And while he could read and write, his wife, annie, could not. By 1880, annie was literate and william had risen to the position of county revenue inspector. Successive generations of polymers illustrate the emergence of the post bellum southern black middle class, with jobs increasingly removed from the subservience of slavery and able to parent households in which the childrens education was a priority. They became homeowners and had the expectations next generation would exceed their own accomplishments. In naming a black patriot and hero two generations of palmers , also claimed their place as black citizens, while illustrating an attention to racial pride that solidified Crispus Attucks status in black communities across the nation. Polymers, in the black americans generally saw their stock decline during the years after the civil war. Africanamericans hopes for a quality and exit in American Society expended briefly after the coast issue of amendments between 18651870 abolishing slavery and guaranteeing equal Citizenship Rights. But those hopes and eroded after the 1870s. By 1879, when Crispus Attucks palma was on, only 2000 black men have held Political Office in southern states, 16 in the congress. At the birth of his namesake in 1912, there were no africanamericans in congress and very few held elective offices at any level. Even the right to vote, let alone hold office, was undermined by convoluted voting rules, racially restrictive laws intimidation, and violence. , while black literacy climbed, black hopes to pursue education were slim. The passage of jim crow laws across the south restricted africanamericans access to schools, jobs, libraries, and other public facilities. After their withdrawal of federal troops from the south in 1877 and the return to power of the white supremacist former slaveholders, even basic constitutional Legal Protections for black americans disappeared. By 1882, in 1882, 49 lynchings of africanamericans were recorded, a number that climbed steadily over the next several decades, reaching well over 3000 in 1920. Countless others, no doubt, went unreported. In times like these, where White America had all but abandoned its concern for the basic welfare and rights of its black citizens, a black hero like Crispus Attucks had little chance to enter the hero pantheon of the nation. While White Americans and mainstream Popular Culture virtually erased attucks from the history of the American Revolution, just as black service in the civil war disappeared from the mainstream and popular conceptions of that conflict. As white northerners and southerners gradually left behind the hatred spawned by the civil war and reconciled their differences over the halfcentury after blacks were 1865, left to preserve their own contributions in segregated spheres of public and personal memory. As both legal and the fact segregation kept the races separate, a memory also developed among racially exclusive parallel paths. With few exceptions, africanamericans had to rely on their own written histories, public commemorations, and private, active memory, like the naming of children, to defy and preserve a meaningful history of the races role in shaping American Society. In the period from the late 19th into the world war ii era, Mainstream Society paid little attention to the role Crispus Attucks and other africanamericans played in American History and culture. One important measure of the Broader Societys erasure of africanamericans from the nations story is history textbooks. Textbooks are official documents that basically tell children, this is what you need to know. This is the true story of your nation. While attucks appeared, sometimes as a hero and sometimes as a villain in many history schoolbooks prior to the civil war, i have not been able to find a single reference to Crispus Attucks in American History textbooks published between the 1880s and 1950s. So africanamericans ramped up their own efforts to promote luck history and to critique black omission from School Textbooks and curricula, as well as the demeaning images of black circulating in american Popular Culture. Africanamerican historical writers in the late 1800s countered this omission with a noble and heroic Crispus Attucks. Unfortunately, one problem with those attempts to tell attuckss story, was that practically nothing was known or can be known about the man. In many cases, writers simply made stuff up about attucks to suit their purposes. While many presentations held close to the slim historical record, between the 1880s and 1930s, some of the stories had generated by black writers had grown downright preposterous. 19th century writers like George Washington williams and william j. Simmons invented an attucks who was goodlooking, literate, wellred in political well philosophy, acal man who was a prominent member of the boston sons of liberty, good friend of paul revere and sam attucks, whose actions became a rallying cry. For black and white patriots. He was clearheaded and loyal hearted, a man who saw himself as an american citizen and was determined to avenge oppression in every form. All of this is fabrication or conjecture with no connection with any historical evidence. After world war i, africanamericans intensified their attention to attucks and other race heroes as they made overt efforts to incorporate africanamerican achievements into the National Historical narrative. Several authors writing Historical Books for young 1920s, eveng the presented the highly and likely image of attucks giving speeches to the admiring boston public and exchanging ideas with the people who thronged around him. Crispus attucks was also honored by africanamericans who named Community Institutions after him, including schools, public parks, housing projects, hotels, community centers, hotels movie , theaters, American Legion posts, and more, including at times the naming of children after him. And his name was invoked more and more frequently by public spokespersons and organizations calling attention to the disregard for black Citizenship Rights during the jim crow era. And you might be able to read the sign being held there, the first blood for american independence was shed by a negro, Crispus Attucks. Interested in promoting attucks as a National Hero was redoubled, as africanamericans once again presented opportunities to sharpen activists arguments for black inclusion and full Citizenship Rights. And there was much broader attention given to attucks from both the american government, and White Americans more generally, expanding why we would require more time than we have tonight, so youll just have to read the book to find out. [laughter] as a hint, the war had a lot to do with it. It should be no surprise that things began to change as the postwar solaris movement focused attention on africanamericans and their place in the nation as at no time since the reconstruction. In the 1960s, some School Districts outside the south made efforts to rectify the neglect of the black past. By 1963, Community Activists in detroit, los angeles, washington, d. C. , chicago, and other cities were successfully moving School Systems towards including africanAmerican History into the curriculum. By middecade, attucks began to appear in history textbooks, albeit as a token. One good measure of the change can be seen in a Popular High School text. The adventure of the american people. The 1960 editions cover of the boston massacre refers to a mob of ruffians, taunting the troops and atrios, using the memory of the event to keep the flames of discontent high. This identical language appeared in the 1970 addition 10 years later, and there, we also learn that one of the victims was Crispus Attucks, a runaway slave who was the leader of the mob. The others also point to the story of the irony of a black who is less than free becoming a martyr to the cause of freedom. By the 1980s and 1990s, it was difficult to find a textbook that did not at least mention attucks. And many featured him prominently as a hero and a patriot. Some texts gave into repeating fabricated biographical details. Like identifying him as active in the sons of liberty, when no evidence to that effect exists. He is still widely represented and misrepresented in textbooks today, as well as other things like documentaries and public addresses and so on. Attucks was also getting attention in juvenile literature juvenile biographies and comic , book histories, what we might call today graphic novel histories. And the authors usually pay paid little attention to historical accuracy continuing , the pattern of making up stories, family members, attitudes and other details about alejandra which bear little resemblance to the historical record. This book here is based on some solid historical research, but although it also embellishes quite a bit. Attention toam alejandra was not without its critics. Since textbooks can this mainstream attention to attucks was not without its critics. Since textbooks can only contain so many pages, the inclusion of blacks, women, native americans, and others who were starting to get more attention, meant that some white men would get less attention. According to historian lewis speer, in the 1970s, the average College Freshmen was expected to have been taught some version of the following. Crispus attucks was the first person to die for american independence. Speer argued Crispus Attucks was seeking wanton amusement by harassing the soldiers, and expressed her hope that students would carefully rethink the negros role and find better leaders with which to identify. Thomasly, historian bailey complained, in his 1960 eight organization of american historians president ial address, of any history kind is deplorable especially , when significant white men are bumped out to make room for significant black men in the interest of racial harmony. To bailey, Crispus Attucks and his fellows were guilty of hooliganism, not heroism. And africanamericans were not always of the same mind about treating attucks as a hero either. Even as early as 1860, john s rock, an abolitionist, said that he would rather honor not turner or even John Brown Nat Turner or even john brown, rather than Crispus Attucks because attucks fought for the revolution that maintained slavery. In 1966, black power spokesperson Stokely Carmichael argued on the one hand that a black man who goes out and throws a brick at a white cop is taking part in an uprising while attucks, while it black man, shot rocks in the revolution of boston. Attucksargued that exemplified blacks fundamental problem of always trying to be american first and black people always down the end. And that is why we are catching hell the way we are catching it today. He listed a group of black heroes who he thought should be part of the School Curriculum like w. E. B. Dubois nat turner, Frederick Douglass, malcolm x and others, and he march the fact that on the uncle toms like George Washington carver and booker t. Washington received attention. He took a Seattle High School audience by surprise in 1967 when he told them the very first man to die for the war of of independence in this country was a black man named Crispus Attucks. Crispus attucks, yes. There was applause and carmichael went on, he was a fool. Yeah. Newman [laughter] he died for white folk country. He should have been fighting white folk instead of dying for white folk. That has been our history as a black people, we have always been dying for white folk. The 1976 bicentennial brought greater attention from the mainstream to Crispus Attucks and black participation in the revolution more broadly as well as increasing opportunities to disseminate interpretations of attucks and other black heroes in schools and the everexpanding mass media. Sometimes commercialization was involved, as with this commemorative bottle of 100 proof jim beam. In 1998, the u. S. Mint featured Crispus Attucks on a commemorative coin honoring africanamerican veterans of the revolution with this portrait, even though we really have little evidence as to what attucks looks like. Looked like. Moving into the 21st century, we can see lots of ways he is discussed or mentioned in songs, movies, television shows, documentaries, or even the internet. In the 1990s, three maryland teenagers named their metal band Crispus Attucks after learning about him in school and identifying with his resistance to oppressive authority. The repressive authority. Im actually wearing my crispus shirts tshirt under my here, i will refrain from showing extreme. [laughter] black musicians from Stevie Wonder to others referenced him in some of their works and Tv Documentaries began to include attucks in their presentations of the revolution. More recently, some rightwing political organizations have chosen attucks to represent their causes. In 2006, black los angeles activists founded a Crispus Attucks brigade of the socalled minuteman movement, which urged both government and civilian action to secure americas border with mexico. The brigade embraced the first black to die in defense of the american nation as inspiration for 21st century africanamericans to take their rightful and dutiful role to stop illegal immigration into the United States. Another africanamerican group aligning itself with a far right Political Movement devoted to the ostensible ideals of the nations founders, was the Crispus Attucks tea party, established in houston, texas in 2011. But texas group aspired to teach americans the history of blacks in america and to help blacks gain control of their lives and the destiny of their children. During the 21st century, attucks became even more a part of School Textbooks, curricula black History Month , presentations, juvenile biographies and histories, and academic scholarships, though misinformation about him abounds. Year 2000, hee had become widely accepted as a part of the nations story but mainly as a token presence. If people knew anything cap all about him, he was merely the black guy from the revolution. Crispus attucks has always been a malleable figure in american memory because there is so little documentary evidence about his life. He is a virtual blank slate upon which different people at different times have inscribed a wide variety of meanings, from patriotic hero and first mortar of liberty, to first tyr of liberty, to an unsavory ruffian threatening the social order to an uncle tom who , sold out his race to fight alongside white slavers to an irrelevant nobody worth remembering at all. His connection with black men and violence in the public streets has not gone unnoticed in the 21st century. In 2000, during a debate over whether to name a bridge for attucks in his probable hometown of framingham, a historian associated him with an all too , image in American Public culture. , he is quoted as saying, is said to have gone on into the street waving a stick about the thickness of a mans wrist, leading a crowd of about 20 soldiers. Sounds like a thug to me. Day, in 2014, a political journalist goodman had a different take, connected him with the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in ferguson , missouri. From Crispus Attucks to Michael Brown 245 years later, goodman wrote, two things remain clear. We never know what sparks the revolution, and black lives matter. Crispus attuckss place in American History today is decidedly mixed. He clearly has had an impact on a sizable number of individuals and organizations, yet remains unknown, or at least easily forgotten by the vast majority of americans. To me, this raises questions about why certain figures stick seem to stick so easily in americanss popular conceptions of the national story, while others fail to make a lasting impact. Part of the answer is straightforward. For generations prior to the 1960s, mainstream american schoolbooks systematically excluded black heroes, black accomplishments, and black participation in the construction of the American Culture and the american nation. Since the 1960s, black s collective inclusion in the american narrative has left a lot to be desired. Rarely are africanamericans presented as serious contributors to the making of the nation. For the most part, theyre still shunted aside as peripheral to the main narrative i summarized earlier. What im trying to do in the book is examine the different ways over the past 250 years that Crispus Attucks has either been made part of or excluded understanding of the American Revolution and the nation. Im interested in these questions of who gets included and who gets ignored in textbooks. Whos honored with monuments, and public commemorations. Who belongs in this country and in this countrys stories, and who is not. Who can claim to be a citizen, a patriot, a hero, and an american. Increasingly, especially since the last president ial election, american seem to be discussing these sorts of issues more publicly and with more passion. Then used to be the case. As we listen to increasingly vocal white supremacists, claiming that they want to take our country back, as we hear fellow citizens wanted to keep certain people out of the United States based on religion or culture, as we face violent public confrontations over what statues and monuments represent and which should be torn down, reinterpreted were replaced, i cant help but feel that the first martyr of liberty and works like it are coming out at the right time. We are currently facing a crisis of historic understanding and national identity. I certainly dont claim to have clear answers on how we should received, but i do argue that the broader American Public would be very well served to consult the work that professional historians do in order to have informed and civil public conversations and debates over these important questions of what america means and who belongs in this country and in this countrys story. Thank you very much. [applause] i am very happy to take any questions or comments you might have. Theres a microphone on the side here. I believe they would like you to come up to the microphone to make in the points you might have or ask any questions. This might sound strange, but when i was in the fifth grade, which might have been 1960 could you get closer to the microphone please . Sure. In 1960, i was in the fifth grade. He was just a little footnote in our history books. He was included in the history books, and our teacher, who was relatively young at the time, she was about 22 of course, we thought that she was about 28, of course we all thought she was an old maid [laughter] she led a discussion afterwards about the conflict between dying for the American Revolution and then slavery continuing so long afterwards. Was that a complete anomaly . Mitch im not sure. In my research because ive covered roughly 250 years of history and had to do some superficial looking, i didnt look at every single American History textbook during the 20th century. I looked at sort of a wide variety of places like Columbia Teachers College that has a really nice collection repositories around the country. The earliest textbooks i actually came across was in 1963, mentioning attucks. So your experience, i doubt it was unique. But it was right around that time. I would be surprised to find any earlier than the 1950s. Thats great to hear it was earlier. Also great that your teacher took advantage of that to have that conversation in 1960. That, i think was a pretty unusual circumstance. Just fascinating, splendid talk. Ill try not to touch this with my actual hand. I was very struck by the descriptions of atticus leading the mob and john adams account and in the woman who didnt want , the bridge named after hims account. And in those accounts, positioning him as a leader was used to discredit the mob. But adams is pretty close to the historical moment. And even with his defense attorney rationale for wanting to do that, i guess i would like to hear you talk some about that notion of him as a leader of a largely white mob, and whether you think about as another fiction about him, or something that there seems to be some historical evidence for, and if so, what do you make of it . Professor kachun thats a good question. A lot of it comes down to, what do we mean by a leader . That can have a lot of different meanings in different context. In terms of the evidence about attucks participation in that mob, there are a number of eyewitness testimonies that make it clear he was not an innocent bystander. He was noted as coming up corn hill toward the custom house on king street. He was holding two clubs and gave one to another person i think Patrick Eaton testified to this he said come on, lets get them. He was obviously very vocal. Several witnesses had him shouting at the troops and daring them to fire and so on, and he was at the front of the mob right in front of the british soldiers. One witness, and only one witness placed him as an , individual who actually used the club he was holding to strike at a british soldier. Some people question that witnesss credibility. They suggest he was certainly not that innocent bystander. Was he a leader . People coming into that area, we have in unclear understanding of we have in unclear understanding of what really happened in the first place. How many people were in the streets . Some people said 40 or 50. Some people said 200 to 300. I have the sense that there were probably at least 100 people there. And attucks was not just leaning against the post, he was at the front being very vocal. So in that sense, maybe he can be described as a leader. But that doesnt really get to his mindset, his motivation. Maybe this guy you have to keep in mind, in 1970, no one was talking about independence. There is no way the desire to separate from the British Empire and declare the american nation to be a new and distinctive country without a monarch, nobody was maybe sam adams in a couple of people, but nobody was really thinking about that. So you are in scribing these ideals of patriotism onto attucks in an ahystorical way. That wasnt really part of the conversation at that time. But, again, these folks in boston who were trying to agitate against the british as 1771,en as early when these massacres started to commemorate the event, their goal really wasnt to separate from the British Empire, but to call attention to british abuses in order to substantiate the american case for having some kind of remediation, i guess, from the empire. So, was he a leader . One can make that argument. But it is really hard to get to his motivations, his mindset and so on. Hopefully that answers your question. I guess the other part is if he is a leader, does that mean that [indiscernible] theor kachun again, question was, if he is a leader in that context, can we consider the white people in that crowd to have been following him as a leader . Again, that is very difficult to answer. We dont have any evidence after the fact. Again, when the massacre martyrs are commemorated in these march 5 commemorations dozens of years after, they are rarely mentioned by name, and never is any one of them singled out as someone to hold up as a hero. So, some of these things that people put into their textbooks or biographies or arguments about alexs role role that he was an inspiration to black and white revolutionaries after the fact, theres just no evidence to support that. So again, its hard to get in the mindset of those people, but the depositions that were taken, most of the people didnt know who he was. I dont think people saw themselves as following him. People in this mob were coming from a lot of different directions. He was said to have led 20 or 30 people up the hill. But people were coming from different elections. They were following someone else or the sound of church bells, or what have you. Hard to say. Yes, i have two comments or questions perhaps. One, you mentioned other black leaders, nat turner and john brown, but you forgot to mention the ladies. I mean come at you dont mention Sojourner Truth. Seems there are is a few people, a lot of these people have remained nameless throughout history, but it might have been a nice link. ,nyway, the second thing is there has recently been a book published about john adams, and about his as a lawyer representing the british soldiers and winning for them. Ihavent read it, because have it on order from my library, but i thought, one should read your book and that book, but they might make an interesting contrast, the economy. Would you suggest or say that might be a good idea . Professor kachun i think that everyone should buy my book. [laughter] john adams,ok on and make best comparison. Do you know who the author is . Has cant remember, but he been on different talk shows and articles, and there have been reviews on his book in, say, the boston globe, and the new york times. Mitch i havent read any. Unfortunately im old and poor, so i had to order it from the library. Professor kachun libraries are great. I am a big fan. Thank you. Yeah, in terms of the women, i didnt mention them. But certainly, my focus is on Crispus Attucks. But it is important to note that he was not the only person used by africanamerican spokespersons, trying to reorient, reconstruct the central narrative of American History. And they did use people like tubman and Sojourner Truth and over the years, others Like Mary Church Terrell and mary mcleod bethune. And on through the decades in order to try to inscribe africanamerican contributions to the construction of the american nation. So, yeah, i didnt mention them tonight. And really, dont spend a lot of time talking about either them or Frederick Douglass or nat turner and others in my book, because i am using attucks to a sort of represent that movement to reorient and recenter the narrative around black contributions. Ok, thank you. Professor kachun thanks. Thank you for a great lecture. Question is, do we know much about the other four in the mob who were killed that day . And can we make any inference about Crispus Attucks sort of biography from knowledge of the other four . Professor kachun i really havent looked too much into the biography of those other four. Again, my focus is on attucks. Im trying to cover a quarter of a millennium here. So [laughter] i have to keep the blinders on in certain respects. One thing i do in the first chapter, although we cant really reconstruct biography of Crispus Attucks, i tried to use other historians work in the 18th century atlantic world, the world of sailors and seaports, to try to get a sense of what kind of possibilities there were for Crispus Attucks. One of the other victims was also a sailor. The others were young people, apprentices leather tanners, ivory workers. So we can look at that crowd and see that there were a lot of there,eople in especially among the young victims. There were a lot of people certainly of the working classes. There were many townspeople of various social levels, a lot of the middling and even upper crash folks on the streets. Some of them did get wounded, most of them, to my knowledge, were not at the forefront. Let helps to feed into adamss characterization of this rabble out in the streets making trouble. Again, i dont have a lot of information. Thats one of the fascinating things. The reason stories about Crispus Attucks are so prominent is because he became a useful symbol in black abolitionists work to advance their own agendas for pursuing Citizenship Rights for themselves and abolition of slavery. The others werent really utilized in that way by other constituencies. Thank you very much. Professor kachun yeah, thank you. Thank you very much for your presentation. I have a twopart question. Its related. If first would be, what Crispus Attucks was indeed not enslaved, which is one question, because you used the term lightly. And i dont think its a given that he was indeed a slave. And secondly, when nell does his work on colored patriots in the 1850s, he includes a good deal of information on the Indigenous People and their participation in the revolutionary struggle. So my question becomes what is the significance of erasing or obliterating the complexity of who attucks was as an individual in making him only a black man . And nell doesnt use the term black. He used the term colored, because colored includes africanamericans, ethiopians, Indigenous People, and all of the other terminology at that time. But i would like to ask you, does anything change if attucks is indeed a free person of color and not a slave . Professor kachun thats an interesting question, yeah, and its part of the speculation. There was a lot of circumstantial evidence. There was a runaway advertisement published in 1750. You are probably aware of this forget identifies, i the exact language, a runaway crispas, from framingham who was six foot two wellbuiltl, mulatto. , and then in 1770, we have a newspaper account of this victim of the boston massacre as a man well, he was initially identified as a man named Michael Johnson, and theres speculation whether that was an alias or misidentification, but he is eventually identified as a man named crispus, six feet tall, substantially built man from framingham, described as a mulatto. To me, that is a very strong circumstantial connection if we are talking about the same man. Its not ironclad, absolutely. Does it change the narrative if indeed he was not an enslaved man . In fact, nell and the other black abolitionists who were using attucks in their activism, i dont believe nell was aware of that runaway ad until about 1860. Research, in his construction of attucks, he starts writing about attucks, he is certainly aware of attucks by 1839. Hes communicating in 1841, writing letters with randall wendell phillips, a white abolitionist, who is certainly inbably a mentor to nell some ways, about a biography of attucks. So, through the 1840s, his first writings about attucks in the 1840s and then in the 1850s, he does not identify i might be wrong but i dont think he identifies attucks as someone who might be enslaved. So, i dont think it would have made a difference because the identity of someone who was a identity as someone who was a selfliberated former slave was not really part of the narrative that nell started to construct in the 1840s. Does that make sense . Of course, but the advertisement that you are referring to from 1750 does not use the word slave in the notice. Theres an earlier advertisement for a fugitive named Michael Johnson. And some of us would argue that son,ars is actually which the topographer in boston reduced to johnson, because his father was prince jonah. But if his mother is indeed a free, native woman, he would not have been born a slave. Professor kachun well, based on the family most people seem to place him in and im not familiar with that Michael Johnson ad. Id like to talk to you and get that citation, but the family that most people place him in nar, and hisnce jo nanny peterattucks. ,nanny peterattucks was identified in most sources as someone who is an indian, descended from a person who is killed in king philips war. But in the estate of William Brown, or colonel buckminster buckminster im blanking professor kachun i blanking on am which one it is. But in this statement, the gentleman died in 1847, i believe. Shes identified as a negro and as a slave as part of his estate. She is valued at 80 pounds. So, whether she was misidentified, her status as a free or indentured or enslaved person is unclear, but she had a value of 80 pounds, it seems that she was not a free and clear, free person. She was bonded to this person in some way. The fact that shes identified as a negro maybe suggested while she was enslaved, and even though she was of native american ancestry, she is negro by association because of her marriage to a gentleman who was apparently born in africa. So theres so much we dont know details of hise family life, and so on. I am not sure if i missed other parts of your thats it. Thank you. But i did want to know if you thought the narrative changes, because it is an appeal to a white audience, to argue that the first person to die for American Freedom was an enslaved african. That flattens out this story of attucks. Professor kachun yeah, but again, i dont think that was the argument i was making. This was an argument that it was a person of color. Ill have to look more closely at attucks at nells full language as to whether he uses negro. Black, or but clearly colored patriots is a broader term. But hes clearly seen by black abolitionists as a black man and others who picked that up, including people like Martin Delaney and william johnson. They identified him as an unequivocally black man. So theres some ambiguity there. You tilted your head. So you might want to look at other sources as well. I dont want to monopolize this, but, you know, when you 1850s, we in the now call africanamerican, using the term colored, and you have nell rewriting entire chapters on Indigenous People who fought in the revolution, im not so sure that they were ignoring the complexity of who this attucks person was. Professor kachun ok. Yeah, im going to stick to my guns on that, though. [laughter] but its worth thinking about. The term colored, of course theres been an evolution of the way africanamericans are referred to by the Broader Society and the way they refer to themselves. There were considerable debate in the 1830s about whether to identify you know, in the revolutionary era, the term african was widely embraced. You have the free africans society, the african methodist episcopal church, the african society, in various cities, the term african was very much embraced by free black communities as they were beginning to form in the aftermath of the revolution. But by the 1830s, increasingly, that term, colored, became adopted by many africanamerican people today, who today we call africanamericans. A famous newspaper out of new york in the 1830s was called the colored american. Someone went so far as to say we should get rid of any qualifying adjectives and simply refer to ourselves as americans. So, those are conversations. But the term colored american or free people of color were terms widely used by the free communities in the north in identifying themselves with the american context. So im not sure how much time we have left here. Maybe one more question. Just a comment, actually, on what you said. You said free people of color. In its common usage you hear now of people of color. Interesting that transition. I am looking at the picture you brought along, another sailor. You sort of alluded to it before. But i was just wondering, if he did not exist, if he was not there, would this still have been the boston massacre . Was he that prominent . , i justdont know had another question the newspapers of the time, how they reported it . I think, kachun absolutely, the boston massacre would have played the role it played even if he were not involved or another person of color were not involved or amongst one of the victims, because, again, for the most part, his racial identity was kind of erased in the coverage after the fact. He was identified in newspaper accounts immediately, first as Michael Johnson, then, but always as a mulatto, a person of mixed racial background. So they werent hiding that. Initially. But afterwards, certainly by the time those orations at the First Anniversary and beyond in 1771, there was no racial identification of any of the victims, which would lead them and again, the purposes of the patriot cause, it would serve their purposes well for the public to assume that these are all respectable, upstanding, white citizens. Members of Boston Society who were struck down by a tyrannical power. So yeah, i think thats how that would play out. Thanks. [applause] thank you very much. 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