First Martyr of Liberty: Crispus Attucks in American Memory

How do stories about the past get constructed? How and why do certain historical narratives gain widespread credibility and familiarity while others are forgotten or marginalized? Why are certain historical figures honored as heroes while others are portrayed as villains or ignored completely? In this talk based on his book First Martyr of Liberty: Crispus Attucks in American Memory (2017), Mitch Kachun explores the different ways, over the past 250 years, that Crispus Attucks—a mixed-race man who was killed in the 1770 Boston Massacre—has been either made a part of or excluded from Americans’ understandings of the story of the American Revolution and the story of the nation.