In Popular Culture
- ‘First man to die for the flag we now hold high was a black man’ is a line from Stevie Wonder’s song Black Man
- 'Crispus Attucks, the first blasted' is a line from Nas' song "You Can't Stop Me Now"
- The poet John Boyle O'Reilly wrote the following poem when the monument was finally unveiled:
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And to honor Crispus Attucks who was the leader and voice that day: The first to defy, and the first to die, with Maverick, Carr, and Gray. Call it riot or revolution, or mob or crowd as you may, such deaths have been seeds of nations, such lives shall be honored for aye...
- Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to Crispus Attucks in the introduction of Why We Can't Wait (1964) as an example of a man whose contribution to history provided a potent message of moral courage.
- In an unsourced, popular book about Attucks, James Neyland wrote his appraisal of the man's significance:
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He is one of the most important figures in African-American history, not for what he did for his own race but for what he did for all oppressed people everywhere. He is a reminder that the African-American heritage is not only African but American and it is a heritage that begins with the beginning of America.
- In the 4th season 30 Rock episode "Winter Madness", character Tracy Jordan accuses a Bostonian John Hancock re-enactor of lying after claiming to have met Attucks at a Sons of Liberty meeting in 1775, five years after his death.
- In February 2012, Wayne Brady, JB Smoove, and Michael Kenneth Williams, as well as Keith David appeared in a satirical rap music video about Crispus Attucks.
- In Season 2 of Lizzie McGuire it's revealed that Lanny Onasis is a direct descendant of Crispus Attucks.
Read more about this topic: Crispus Attucks
Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or culture:
“If our entertainment culture seems debased and unsatisfying, the hope is that our children will create something of greater worth. But it is as if we expect them to create out of nothing, like God, for the encouragement of creativity is in the popular mind, opposed to instruction. There is little sense that creativity must grow out of tradition, even when it is critical of that tradition, and children are scarcely being given the materials on which their creativity could work”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“No race has the last word on culture and on civilization. You do not know what the black man is capable of; you do not know what he is thinking and therefore you do not know what the oppressed and suppressed Negro, by virtue of his condition and circumstance, may give to the world as a surprise.”
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