America 250: Why Crispus Attucks Matters Today

Death of Crispus Attucks, William L Champney, Boston Massacre — National Archives and Records Administration

AFRO-AMERICAN – WASHINGTON — By New York Amsterdam News – As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, a discussion has emerged about how the nation should commemorate this milestone. The article suggests focusing on Crispus Attucks, an formerly enslaved man whose death marked the first casualty of the American Revolution.

Instead of choosing between competing July Fourth celebrations, honor the man whose death helped ignite the American Revolution.

Division is a word that stands in stark contrast to the ideals inherent to the United States of America, but it has become an operative one for Donald Trump and his administration.

Even as the nation gathers to celebrate its 250th birthday, we witness an insuperable divide, keenly illustrated in the notion of two differing commemorations. One is “America 250” and the other “Freedom 250.”

The latter was initiated by Trump to counter the prior one established by Congress in 2016 as the official, nonpartisan commission and often cited as “America’s Block Party.

In 2025, Trump issued an executive order, thereby creating an arm of his administration‘s Task Force 250. What we have, as one pundit put it, is one birthday and two planners.

First to Die for His Country

Of course, early on, the country observed that someone else’s birthday was in the mix when Ultimate Fighting Championship events were staged on the South Lawn of the White House on June 14.

This was just another blatant example of his egomania, his narcissism that has imperiled us since the inauguration of his second term. We have, in these pages, posted countless critiques of his tyranny of monarchy, and there is so much more to be said as we endure his assault on our democratic rights.

Evidence of this occurs daily — the evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, the suspension of the Temporary Protection Status that threatens the deportation of Haitians and Syrians, and at the same time opening our portals to allegedly racially embattled white South Africans, the militarization of our streets with ICE agents, ending the Constitutional guarantees of birthright, an unsanctioned and reckless war with Iran, and ad infinitum.

Source:

https://blackpressusa.com/america-250-why-crispus-attucks-matters-today/