The beginning of my story about Crispus Attucks reflects the awful circumstances of slavery. It is a struggle that continues worldwide to this day.
Our story begins…
Whether I die as a hero, or scoundrel–or if my life ends with a small depression in the soil to simply mark the final repository of my bones—will greatly depend on whether we Americans unite and go beyond the overthrowing of one king’s tyranny to the establishment of a New World government that recognizes all men walk this Earth on the same level plane between the violent awakening of birth to the forever sleep of death.
I was born into slavery during the winter of 1723 at the Brinley farm in Framingham, Massachusetts; the exact date is uncertain. To make record keeping easier, all farm animals in Massachusetts Bay Colony are assigned the birthday of January first.
I have two names: Crispus Attucks, my birth name, and Michael Johnson, a name I must use while signing ship logs to avoid recapture. For forty-and–five–years, I have been roaming these colonies, the Atlantic and Pacific Islands, the Caribbean, the ripe shores of Western Africa and the European Mainland.
My earliest remembrance, my primal thought, is of the gray weather-beaten barn where my mother, Nana, and father, were penned—locked away at nights so they could not steal us away from our slavery. They were not born with chains as appendages and did not understand or accept the heavy hand of white authority. When struck, they struck back. When they were dragged off to the pillory—hands bound by coarse jute rope or forged rusted iron—they spat back. You can only use what you have.