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Boston African American National Historic Site
The Boston African American National Historic Site, in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts's Beacon Hill neighborhood, interprets 15 pre-Civil War structures relating to the history of Boston's 19th-century African-American community, connected by the Black Heritage Trail. These include the 1806 African Meeting House, the oldest standing black church in the United States. Overview The historical site is located on Beacon Hill, a neighborhood just north of Boston Common. The site was designated in 1980 to "preserve and commemorate original buildings that housed the nineteenth-century free African-American community on Beacon Hill." That year President Jimmy Carter signed bills authorizing this and the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, as well as one to establish the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center in Wilberforce, Ohio. He said: The two bills that I will sign today represent a three-pronged effort to preserve a vital, but long neglected, part o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Decades of political controversy over slavery were brought to a head by the victory in the 1860 U.S. presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion into the west. An initial seven southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and, in 1861, forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. Led by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abiel Smith School
Abiel Smith School, founded in 1835, is a school located at 46 Joy Street in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, adjacent to the African Meeting House. It is named for Abiel Smith, a white philanthropist who left money (an estimated $4,000) in his will to the city of Boston for the education of black children. The city constructed the school building with Smith's funds. Designed by Richard Upjohn as his first public project, this was the first public school for free blacks. In 1835, all black children in Boston were assigned to the Smith school, which replaced a basement school in the African Meeting House next door. It is a National Historic Landmark and a site on the Boston Black Heritage Trail and is part of the Museum of African American History. It is part of the Boston African American National Historic Site. History African-American parents organized a school for their children in 1798; it was first held in the home of Primus Hall. After the African Meeting House was co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, becoming famous for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings. Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counterexample to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been a slave. It was in response to this disbelief that Douglass wrote his first autobiography. Douglass wrote three autobiographies, describing his experiences as a slave in his ''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave'' (1845), which became a bestseller and was influential in promoting t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glory (1989 Film)
''Glory'' is a 1989 American historical war drama film directed by Edward Zwick about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, one of the Union Army's earliest African-American regiments in the American Civil War. It stars Matthew Broderick as Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the regiment's commanding officer, and Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, and Morgan Freeman as fictional members of the 54th. The screenplay by Kevin Jarre was based on the books ''Lay This Laurel'' (1973) by Lincoln Kirstein and '' One Gallant Rush'' (1965) by Peter Burchard and the personal letters of Shaw. The film depicts the soldiers of the 54th from the formation of their regiment to their heroic actions at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner. ''Glory'' was co-produced by TriStar Pictures and Freddie Fields Productions, and distributed by Tri-Star Pictures in the United States. It premiered in limited release in the United States on December 14, 1989, and in wide release on February 16, 1990, grossing $27 mil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fort Wagner
Fort Wagner or Battery Wagner was a beachhead fortification on Morris Island, South Carolina, that covered the southern approach to Charleston Harbor. It was the site of two American Civil War battles in the campaign known as Operations Against the Defenses of Charleston in 1863, in which United States forces took heavy casualties while trying to seize the fort. Construction Named for deceased Lt. Col. Thomas M. Wagner, Fort Wagner measured by , and spanned an area between the Atlantic on the east and an impassable swamp on the west. Its walls, composed of sand and earth, rose above the level beach and were supported by palmetto logs and sandbags. The fort's arsenal included fourteen cannons, the largest a Columbiad that fired a 128-pound shell. It was a large structure capable of sheltering nearly 1,000 of the fort's 1,700-man garrison and provided substantial protection against naval shelling. The fort's land face was protected by a water-filled trench, wide and dee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher, and is administered by Columbia University. Prizes are awarded annually in twenty-one categories. In twenty of the categories, each winner receives a certificate and a US$15,000 cash award (raised from $10,000 in 2017). The winner in the public service category is awarded a gold medal. Entry and prize consideration The Pulitzer Prize does not automatically consider all applicable works in the media, but only those that have specifically been entered. (There is a $75 entry fee, for each desired entry category.) Entries must fit in at least one of the specific prize categories, and cannot simply gain entrance for being literary or musical. Works can also be entered only in a maximum of two categories, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Lowell
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects in his poetry. Growing up in Boston also informed his poems, which were frequently set in Boston and the New England region. The literary scholar Paula Hayes believes that Lowell mythologized New England, particularly in his early work. Lowell stated, "The poets who most directly influenced me ... were Allen Tate, Elizabeth Bishop, and William Carlos Williams. An unlikely combination! ... but you can see that Bishop is a sort of bridge between Tate's formalism and Williams's informal art." Lowell wrote in both formal, metered verse as well as free verse; his verse in some poems from ''Life Studies'' and ''Notebook'' fell somewhere in between metered and free verse. After the publication of his 1959 book ''Life Studies'', which won the 1960 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Massachusetts State House
The Massachusetts State House, also known as the Massachusetts Statehouse or the New State House, is the List of state capitols in the United States, state capitol and seat of government for the Massachusetts, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, located in the Beacon Hill, Boston, Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston. The building houses the Massachusetts General Court (State legislature (United States), state legislature) and the offices of the Governor of Massachusetts. The building, designed by architect Charles Bulfinch, was completed in January 1798 at a cost of $133,333 (more than five times the budget), and has repeatedly been enlarged since. It is one of the oldest state capitols in current use. It is considered a masterpiece of Federal architecture and among Bulfinch's finest works, and was designated a National Historic Landmark for its architectural significance. Building and grounds The building is situated on of land on top of Beacon Hill in Boston, Massachusetts, Bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boston Common (park)
The Boston Common (also known as the Common) is a public park in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest city park in the United States. Boston Common consists of of land bounded by Tremont Street (139 Tremont St.), Park Street, Beacon Street, Charles Street, and Boylston Street. The Common is part of the Emerald Necklace of parks and parkways that extend from the Common south to Franklin Park in Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, and Dorchester. The visitors' center for the city of Boston is located on the Tremont Street side of the park. The Central Burying Ground is on the Boylston Street side of Boston Common and contains the graves of the artist Gilbert Stuart and the composer William Billings. Also buried there are Samuel Sprague and his son, Charles Sprague, one of America's earliest poets. Samuel Sprague was a participant in the Boston Tea Party and fought in the Revolutionary War. The Common was designated as a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Colored Troops
The United States Colored Troops (USCT) were regiments in the United States Army composed primarily of African-American (colored) soldiers, although members of other minority groups also served within the units. They were first recruited during the American Civil War, and by the end of the war in 1865, the 175 USCT regiments constituted about one-tenth of the manpower of the Union Army. About 20% of USCT soldiers died, a rate about 35% higher than that of white Union troops. Many USCT soldiers fought with distinction, with 16 receiving the Medal of Honor and numerous others receiving other honors. The USCT regiments were precursors to the Buffalo Soldier regiments in the American Old West. History The Confiscation Act The U.S. Congress passed the Confiscation Act of 1862 in July 1862. It freed slaves whose owners were in rebellion against the United States, and the Militia Act of 1862 empowered the President to use free blacks and former slaves from rebels states in any cap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Gould Shaw Memorial
The ''Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts Fifty-Fourth Regiment'' is a bronze relief sculpture by Augustus Saint-Gaudens opposite 24 Beacon Street, Boston (at the edge of the Boston Common). It depicts Colonel Robert Gould Shaw leading members of the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry as it marched down Beacon Street on May 28, 1863 to depart the city to fight in the South. The sculpture was unveiled on May 31, 1897. This is the first civic monument to pay homage to the heroism of African American soldiers. History The monument marks Shaw's death on July 18, 1863 after he and his troops attacked Fort Wagner, one of two forts protecting the strategic Confederate port of Charleston, South Carolina. Joshua Bowen Smith, a Massachusetts state legislator, led the effort to obtain authorization for the monument; others participating in its early planning included Governor John Albion Andrew, who had urged Shaw to take command of the 54th Regiment, Samuel Gridl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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