First Martyr of Liberty

Crispus Attucks in American Memory

Mitch Kachun (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

328 Seiten

2020
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-009249-8 (ISBN)

Artikel merken

First Martyr of Liberty explores how Crispus Attucks's death in the 1770 Boston Massacre led to his achieving mythic significance in the role of African Americans in the mainstream American historical narrative from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries.

First Martyr of Liberty explores how Crispus Attucks's death in the 1770 Boston Massacre led to his achieving mythic significance in African Americans' struggle to incorporate their experiences and heroes into the mainstream of the American historical narrative. While the other victims of the Massacre have been largely ignored, Attucks is widely celebrated as the first to die in the cause of freedom during the era of the American Revolution. He became a symbolic embodiment of black patriotism and citizenship.

This book traces Attucks's career through both history and myth to understand how his public memory has been constructed through commemorations and monuments; institutions and organizations bearing his name; juvenile biographies; works of poetry, drama, and visual arts; popular and academic histories; and school textbooks. There will likely never be a definitive biography of Crispus Attucks since so little evidence exists about the man's actual life. While what can and cannot be known about Attucks is addressed here, the focus is on how he has been remembered--variously as either a hero or a villain--and why at times he has been forgotten by different groups and individuals from the eighteenth century to the present day.

Mitch Kachun is Professor of History at Western Michigan University. He is the author of Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915 and co-editor of The Curse of Caste; or the Slave Bride: A Rediscovered African American Novel by Julia C. Collins.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Who Was This Man?
Chapter 2: The Dustbin of History: Crispus Attucks and American Amnesia, 1770s-1840s
Chapter 3: First Martyr of Liberty: Crispus Attucks and the Struggle for Citizenship in the Civil War Era
Chapter 4: Crispus Attucks Meets Jim Crow: The Segregation of American Memory, 1870s-1910s
Chapter 5: Crispus Attucks Meets the New Negro: Black History and Black Heroes between the World Wars
Chapter 6: Crispus Attucks Meets Dorie Miller: Black Patriotism and Activism in the World War II Era
Chapter 7: Crispus Attucks and the Black Freedom Struggle, 1950s-1970s
Chapter 8: Crispus Attucks from the Bicentennial to the Culture Wars, 1970s-1990s
Chapter 9: Crispus Attucks in Twenty-First Century America
Conclusion
Notes
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	23.01.2020
Zusatzinfo	22 hts
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	145 x 226 mm
Gewicht	399 g
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Briefe / Tagebücher
	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Wirtschaftsgeschichte
ISBN-10	0-19-009249-1 / 0190092491
ISBN-13	978-0-19-009249-8 / 9780190092498
Zustand	Neuware