Boston Massacre - Legacy

Legacy

The massacre was remembered in 1858 in a celebration organized William Cooper Nell, an African American abolitionist who saw the death of Crispus Attucks as an opportunity to demonstrate the role of African Americans in the Revolutionary War. In part of because of this activism, artwork commemorating the massacre was produced that changed the color of a victim's skin to black (which in Revere's original engraving was white) to emphasize Attucks' claimed martyrdom. In 1888, a monument was erected on the Boston Common to the men killed in the massacre, and the five victims, along with Christopher Seider, were reinterred in a prominent grave in the Granary Burying Ground.

The massacre is reenacted annually on March 5 under the auspices of the Bostonian Society. The Old State House, the massacre site, and the Granary Burying Ground are all part of Boston's Freedom Trail, connecting sites important in the city's revolutionary-era history.