My am director of outreach at the american antiquarian society. I want to welcome you to this talk. You can find out up a brochure at the desk. You can also join our mailing list by filling out the information on your sheet. You can also pick one up at the front desk. As many of you know, we are a National Research library Whose Mission is to collect, preserve and share the printed record of the United States, portions of canada and the British West Indies before the 20th century. Collect anything and everything printed within these parameters from graphic princeton newspapers and periodicals. We use these collections as the basis for all of our programs which bring scholars, artists, writers and teachers and students at all levels together to participate in the workshop, seminars, performances and a variety of other programs. Tonights lecture is part of a series of programs we are offering connected to an exhibition called beyond midnight paul revere. It is currently on display in message news is through june 7. One part is that the western art museum down the street and the other one in concord. This exhibition will have concluded at the crystal bridges museum of american art in museum. It will be on display from july 4 until october 26. If you didnt get a chance to see it while it is here, i highly encourage you to do so. Curator and the Andrew Mellon curator of national arts. The director of fellowship and the center for historic american visual culture. Its ancillary and programming offers a fresh perspective on the legendary midnight writers by showcasing paul reveres many skills as a craftsman and entrepreneur. Although we know him for his revolutionary activities, he was maker and thenon First American producer of copper sheets. We would like to thank the major sponsors of this exhibition. The most complete collection of on paper. The most famous of these is the bloody massacre. It was reveres rendering of the event they came to be known as the boston massacre, which marked the 250th anniversary last week. Tonights 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 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 Attucks 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 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 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 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, 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. 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 of 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 in the greater scheme of things, he was no more important or significant that than the on the rest. They all laid played 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 in that revolutionary saga. Wasthe fact that the man Crispus Attucks is happenstance. Had a been another person in the mob that day or a confrontation on another day, would that person be remembered 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, after the famous question in his letters from an american farmer, what then is the new 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. As far as he was concerned, the new man he saw coming into being in the nascent United States was either a european or the descendent of a european. In other words, he was white. Yet, during the era of the American Revolution, approximately 20 , 1 in every five people was of african birth or african descent. People like Crispus Attucks were very much a part of 18th century america. They embodied much of what was new and distinctive in the revolutionary nation. Attuckss life allowed him to see the best and worst of 18th century america. The economic and social vitality of growing colonies, the oppression of slavery, the intermingling of diverse 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 natural rights that came to define the idealistic new itself view of itself. So in looking at stories that have grown around Crispus Attucks over the past 250 years, ive looked into scholarly histories, juvenile literature, public monuments, works of drama and literature, visual arts, 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 attucks was, people have tended to make things up about him. Details about his family, his education, his religion, his politics, his patriotism, things of which we have 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 that provoked the troops into firing. Attucks, 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 dare not fire. Kill them. Kill them. Knock them over. And 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 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 part of that involved identifying attucks as a racially mixed outsider, as the ringleader. He did his job well and the soldiers were exonerated. Over the next several years, bostons patriots used the memory of the massacre and its victims to serve their own political agendas by portraying the victims as respectable, innocent citizens struck down by a tyrannical military power. The paul revere engraving, of course, is perhaps the bestknown piece of propaganda in this activity, showing the respectable and apparently white colonists being mowed down by an abusive military. There are also annual march 5, commemorations from 17711783, with speeches placing all blame over the horrid scene on the british tyrants. These orations 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. American revolution. 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 like john adams, as a ruffian. Samuel goodrich was one of the most popular and prolific 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, shouted in their faces, challengedthem, and them to fire. Had the troops not fired, he he informed his young leaders, the irritated and unreasonable populace would have torn the soldiers to pieces. The appearance of this text and a few others in the 1830s that identified attucks racially, brought him to the first time to the attention of africanamerican abolitionists. Once black abolitionists learned about attucks, they made him into a revolutionary symbol. A usable 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 was regarded as otherwise. He was the man most responsible for Crispus Attucks bursting onto the american scene in the 1850s and 1860s, as the fundamental example of black patriotism and virtuous citizenship. In the emerging mythology, black activists ignored attuckss 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. And that has been the most common characterization of attucks ever since. What is more remarkable is the 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 during the civil war, as black men donned blue uniforms and risked 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. Tion of theo