Liberty and Justice for Some
On a snowy night in a Boston pub, sailors from a whaling ship gathered to swap sea stories over pints of beer. Some of the men had recently returned from the Bahamas and planned to set sail soon to North Carolina. A British soldier dropped in the bar and inquired about part-time work. The seamen, worried about their own employment, cursed at the soldier and ran him out of the tavern. Great Britain paid its soldiers so poorly that many of them had to work multiple jobs just to survive. The influx of outsiders looking for work drove down the wages of the locals. Also, the Royal Navy was forcing some of the colonists into military service against their will. Tensions ran high.
One of the sailors at the pub that night was Michael Johnson, a tall, muscular middle-aged man who worked as a rope-maker when he wasn’t out at sea. The next day, he joined a crowd of protestors who were upset about the thousands of British soldiers who occupied their city, the jobs they were taking, and the taxes they were trying to enforce. Just two weeks earlier, a British customs officer Ebenezer Richardson had shot and killed Christopher Seider, an 11 year old American boy.
Michael made his way up to the front of the protestors as they approached a line of British soldiers. He carried a wooden stick and swung it at an officer and another soldier. Some say he knocked away the soldier’s rifle and struck him in the face. Others say he was just, “leaning on a stick” when one of the British soldiers shot Michael twice in the chest, killing him. The first musket ball didn’t do too much damage, but the second one tore through his lungs and liver. The British Soldiers opened fire and killed four more American protestors in what became known as the Boston Massacre.
Michael Johnson was an alias used by Crispus Attucks. Crispus was an escaped slave who ran away from his slave owner at age 27. Crispus’ father was an enslaved African and his mother was a Native American member of the Wampanoag tribe. Crispus was born in Framingham, Massachusetts in 1723. On March 5th, 1770, he was the first American man to die in the War for Independence. Crispus was multiracial — he was an African American and a Native American. The American story is a multiracial story.
Samuel Adams, the founding father and patriot, organized the funeral procession that took Crispus’ casket to Boston’s Faneuil Hall. He lay in state for three days before his public funeral. More than half of Boston’s population joined in the funeral procession that carried the caskets of Crispus and the other four American victims to their final resting place. They were all buried in a common grave, four white men and one black man, in Boston’s Old Granary Burying Ground.
In the 19th century, Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists used the story of Crispus’ sacrifice to build support to end slavery in America and push for equal rights for African Americans. In the 20th century, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote about the life of Crispus Attucks in the book, “Why We Can’t Wait.” King wrote, “he is one of the most important figures in African-American history, not for what he did for his own race but for what he did for all oppressed people everywhere. He is a reminder that the African-American heritage is not only African but American and it is a heritage that begins with the beginning of America.”
As we celebrate Independence Day, it is important to remember and honor those who fought and sacrificed for our freedoms, especially those who could not yet enjoy those freedoms fully for themselves. More than 5,000 African Americans served in the Continental Army and patriot militias during the American Revolution. Today, I honor Crispus Attucks. The first American man killed in the war for Independence.
