Of course, the usual insightful observations I appreciate, though I just want to add that I keep thinking about a couple important facts I ran across in relationship to violence, between that of the brave men who fought and the cruelty of those that own and did not.
The first episode related to July fourth speaks of the all colored patriot regiment of Rhode Island who were thoroughly praised and respected by Governor Eustis for the valiant fight for America’s freedom during the Revolutionary War, which these agreed to fight for only in exchange for their Freedom from bondage. Gov Eustis said: “The glory of the defence of Red Bank, which has been pronounced one of the most heroic actions of the war, belongs in reality to black men; yet who now hears them spoken of in connection with it?” Governor Eustis made this speech the 12th December, 1820 when speaking out against slavery being imposed on Missouri. He was agitating for it being founded as a freed state. Many white enslavers with their vast fortunes, made from the hard and free work of black limbs on their Southern plantations, stole Missouri in opposition to him through guns and force, and they did not want to know about that regiment of black soldiers and their heroic action in the Revolutionary War. They didn’t care and wanted those memories of 40 years ago Gov Eustis recalled of freed black American soldiers in the Revolutionary War who were armed and fighting for the founding of this nation permenantly forgotten. It is sad that bravery and valor in battle was not triumphed with statues of remembrance. Let’s remember these American colored brothers in arms who held the line for our freedom. Their quality of character in the midst of battle saved so many lives and so impressed many whites that the governor recalled them 40 years later as heroes.
Secondly, you speak of Crispus. He was down on the docks with a mixed group of sailors, an Irish brogue, a Tar Jack, a black man of mixed race, and together they had enough, could not stand the cheating of the redcoats in not paying the young apprentice who had just fixed one wig and gave it back to a redcoat. They along with many tolerated too much abuse by the white king’s oppressive white redcoats, and they were not bound together in common cause that from the decades after Quaker whites began writing of abolition of slavery starting 1688, and when negroes starting to agitate for the vote in the 1740s. But this time on the docks, enough was enough they snapped. This group started fighting to be free from this continual and abusive white autocratic oppression and sought fair treatment for all.
They so impressed the lawyer of one who survived that this lawyer named their friend Crispus the First Martyr of the American Revolution and recognized that fight from these sailor men was like a spark that fanned the flames of Revolution building for so long, as the fighting continued after that day. This became the founding myth or narrative to this lawyer who defended one in court that he used to inspire others. He was John Adams, and another founder agreed with him about this bravery, John Hancock. But decades and decades later, when a group of well respected and well off freed black Americans petitioned to have a statue built in the center of Boston honoring them, they were told something like the modern equivalent we often see from white politicians when black Americans agitate for a “40 acres and a mule Act” (H.R. 40 introduced in 1989 but table) or the John Lewis Voting Rights Act: “we’re in a crisis”, “the budget is tight”, “there’s a war going on”, “perhaps in next years session we can consider it”. It didn’t get built those decades later in the early 1800s, and even with the backing of the most pro-equal rights, pro-abolition founders giving their voices and agreement to this key of a fight they think sparked the Great Revolution that birthed July 4th and this nation, they couldn’t find time to honor that story, and those men, down on the docks, one of which gave his life as the First Martyr of the American Revolution.
The problem seems to the resistance of white men with slaves, rich and loaded with cash, loudly drowning out even the voices of the founders, is the violence of which you speak. They resist and resist equality, dishonoring those who started the Revolution, because of those heroes skin color and their delight in raking higher profit by repressing the rights of colored men so they can’t seek higher and fairer wages, whether enslaved by their cruelty or freed men. Their respect will never come, because they will never acknowledge all the black or “colored” Americans who fought in that Revolutionary War, and they will deny they fought in every war in America. Their violence seems to come from a place deep in their soul’s darkness, surrounded by by vast riches that prevent them from any light of truth and suffering others have born and bear from America’s freedom. They may live here in flesh, but they will never reach the spiritual shores of justice and freedom it was founded on.
I thank you again for sparking my thoughts to action.