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238th Anniversary of the Boston Massacre

March 5, 2008
Robert J. Allison professor, history, Suffolk University

Robert Allison narrates a commemorative reading of the Boston Massacre Orations by local high school students on the 238th anniversary of the massacre. On March 5, 1770, British soldiers killed 5 men on the streets of Boston in what would become known as the Boston Massacre. In the years that followed the Boston Massacre, prominent patriots delivered commemoration speeches at Old South Meeting House to keep the Massacre in recent memory and to incite rebellion. In the 1850s, Boston abolitionists revived this tradition to support their cause.

This year, in honor of the 238th anniversary of this revolutionary event, the Bostonian Society and The Old South Meeting House co-present a reading of these moving orations with the help of local high school students who dramatize the eloquent words of orators such as John Hancock, Joseph Warren, and John Rock. Robert Allison, history professor at Suffolk University and author of The Boston Massacre, narrates the event and discusses the tradition of commemoration.

History
WGBH
Bostonian Society
Image of The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World, 1776-1815
Author: Robert Allison
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (2000)
Binding: Paperback, 284 pages
Image of Conflicts in American History: A Documentary Encyclopedia
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Binding: Hardcover, 3200 pages
Image of The Boston Tea Party (NE Remembers)
Author: Robert Allison
Publisher: Commonwealth Editions (2007)
Binding: Paperback, 88 pages