Monumental Attucks
Virtual Panel
African American leaders in late 19th century Boston fought to create a lasting monument to Crispus Attucks on Boston Common. They forged a broad coalition of supporters, including Irish American leaders, and ultimately prevailed in creating a monument to Attucks and the other victims of the Boston Massacre, whom opponents cast as “hoodlums, rioters and ruffians.”
Monumental Attucks explores the story of the monument’s creation, and reflect on how monuments bring us together and when they drive us apart.
Panelists
Robert Bellinger - Associate Professor of History at Suffolk University, and author of Monuments, Memorials and Historic Sites, New England’s Visible Black History in Photographs
Millington W. Bergeson-Lockwood - author of Race Over Party: Black Politics and Partisanship in Late 19th Century Boston
Mitch Kachun - Professor Emeritus of History at Western Michigan University, and author of First Martyr of Liberty: Crispus Attucks in American Memory
Byron Rushing - former Massachusetts State Representative and past president of the Museum of Afro-American History.
Reflecting Attucks
Reflecting Attucks is a virtual exhibit that explores the memory of Crispus Attucks, a man of African and Native descent who was the first to die at the Boston Massacre, an act of protest widely viewed as a turning point on the road to American Revolution.
In this exhibit, we delve into Attucks’s world and look at how generations of Americans have seen their own reflection in the image of Attucks standing in the face of fierce opposition. By remembering him as a martyr, leader and courageous fighter, they fueled freedom movements that changed the course of history.