Crispus Attucks and the Real Meaning of Independence

In this episode of "Shelley's Plumline," hosts Mark Jamroz and Dr. Ricky Jones explore the foundational contradictions of American history, using Frederick Douglass’s critique of Independence Day as a starting point. 

We analyze the systematic erasure of figures like Crispus Attucks from public memory and discuss how lingering ideologies from the Civil War era continue to influence modern society. 

The episode concludes by encouraging listeners to engage in independent research to critically examine these historical narratives and their ongoing impact on American democracy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:03

Hello, world, and welcome to Shelly's podcast. Truthful Talk of Tough Topics, hosted by Dr. Shelly Stewart. Shelley started broadcasting in 1949, and he has been on a journey to discover the truth for humanity ever since. And at 91 years of age, Shelley still sits down before the microphone as he pursues answers to tough topics, challenging us to change the experience of being human and our outlook on humanity. Ladies and gentlemen, I am honored to present the newest member of the Radio Hall of Fame and the oldest podcaster in the world. Get ready. Here comes Jelly.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Look, you did this, Wiki. Look, look, look, don't look at me like that. You didn't look at me look at me. I'm coming back. I'm coming back. I'm coming back. And I'm gonna be right. By the way, thank you guys. You're gonna look into it. Keep the hope alive. I'm coming back. I'm coming back. I'm coming back. Don't look at me like that.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Hello, world. Welcome to Shelly's Plum Line, the most conscious father-son podcast in the world. Sands Shelly the Playboy Stewart, who, as you hear, he he claims me, his son, Dr. Ricky Jones, and our dear brother Mark Jamroz got him locked away. He said we got him locked away, right? Mark, that's right.

SPEAKER_04 2:26

We gotta keep him, keep him under wraps. Yeah, keep him out of keep him in control here because who knows what he's gonna say, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Yeah, this show is the brainchild of my father, uh, actually, uh, obviously, and it is never as good without him. But as many of you know, look, he is 91 years old and been going through some health issues. His breathing is is really, really in in um kind of tenuous shape right now. While he wants to get on and talk all day, I'm like, look, old man, you you you gotta preserve your lungs, man. You know, you gotta preserve your lungs, you can't be doing this, and so of course, him being honored, right, Mark. You're visiting him, and he's threatening you, he's threatening you, he's threatening me, and and you know, so we we miss you, old man. We'll we'll get you back soon. But you you've seen the old man face to face, Mark, uh uh more recently than I have. How's he doing?

SPEAKER_04 3:22

He's he is definitely on the men from the way he was a few weeks ago. You know, he he says he's gonna be back, and I completely believe him. So I would probably say in another few weeks we may we may have the legend back on the air.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Well, the hall of famer, the hall of famer, the radio hall of famer. Dr. Shelley Stewart will be back, but until then, you're stuck with his son, Dr. Ricky Jones, and our dear brother Mark Jamroz. Yeah, please, whatever platform you're listening to us on, make sure that you share with some friends, make sure that you hit that like button, make sure that you hit that subscribe button. We need you to join us. You know, we we are here to try to educate and entertain. We do think that we have a unique product, um, and certainly made better with the old man. But until he gets back, my brother Mark and I will do the best that we can. We certainly will. Mark, we are into summer, man. We're into a key part of summer right now, and I know that you and your family, because y'all are you know, good, good, good white brothers and sisters. Y'all about to have your fourth of July celebrations, right? Yeah, right. Yeah, now, Mark, I want to um open open the show up after the old man complained. I want to open the show with some words from our dear brother Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass, who arguably was the greatest black leader of the 19th century. Frederick Douglass, who dies in 1895, freed himself from slavery. Douglas stood before an audience once and said, I stand before you today as a thief. I stole this head, I stole these arms, I stole these legs, I stole this body from the man this country says rightfully owned them. I stole myself. Now that's gangster if you steal yourself. But in 1852, Mark, Frederick Douglass was asked to speak at a fourth of July celebration here in the great country of America. I guess that's when it was great. Now we're trying to make it great again, supposedly, but in 1852, these are some of the words from Frederick Douglass. He said, in the in the title of the speech, we've come to call it what is the fourth of July? What is, I'm sorry, what to the slave is the fourth of July? What to the slaves is the fourth of July? And I'm quoting Douglas. He says, Fellow citizens, pardon me. Allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I or those I represent to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that declaration of independence extended to us? And am I therefore called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. Our dear brother, Frederick Douglass, July 5th, 1852. That's a fancy way of saying July 4th don't mean a damn thing to me. Don't mean a damn thing to me. And so, but what we have going on right now, Mark, as time has moved on, we have a kind of a through line, a tunnel for a few months of really three dates that lead us to think on an overall question. The first date is June 19th, uh, 1865, when supposedly Union General Gordon Granger goes in to Texas and tells the slaves in Texas after the Civil War hostilities ended in in April of that year. And certainly a lot of negotiations went on until 1866. But really, this the secession of hostilities is in April of 1865, and he goes into Texas in June and speaks to the slaves in June of June 19th, 1865. Says, hey, you're free. Let me inform you that you're free. This is over. But uh he there's some complications there, and we'll talk about those as we move along. But that is the date that we now know of as Juneteenth. Okay, that's Juneteenth, which was made a national holiday a few years ago by President Joseph Biden. I don't know if he remembers that he did that at this point, I'm not sure. But that said, then we got your day, Mark. We got your day, July 4th. You know, the 250th anniversary of America is coming up, flag waving, uh UFC fighting on the on the White House lawn, you know. Uh President Trump, you know, beating his chest. We are making America great again, and July 4th is the commemoration of that. And then the last date I want to talk about is August 8th of 1863. August 8th. Now, August 8th of 1863 marks the date when Abraham Lincoln's vice president, Andrew Johnson, of the great state of Tennessee. Ooh, Tennessee's politics these days are kind of tough too. But back in 1863, August 8th, Andrew Johnson freed his slaves. So when you get into where I am right now in Kentucky, Western Kentucky, particularly, and into the state of Tennessee, there's the this acknowledgement and celebration of August 8th. Now, let me admit this. I never heard of June 19th. I never heard of Juneteenth growing up in Atlanta and didn't know anything about August 8th either. Wasn't something that that we really recognize. I learned about those things as an adult, but all of them, June 19th, July 4th, August 8th, all lead us to ask the question what is the state of race relations, independence, freedom, and racial equality in America as we move through 2026. That's really the question. So you can tell me your thoughts on those dates, and I know you want to run all the way back because you're like, hey man, black people have been been really trying to fit into this thing and fight for this thing a long time because you got another date, don't you?

SPEAKER_04 10:01

I do have another date. If anyone can remember the significance of March 5th, 1770. There was a moment there that uh British troops opened fire on citizens in Boston. It became known as the Boston Massacre. And I think it's readily forgotten that the first person to shed blood for the American Revolution was a black man named Crispus Eddox. And I think to this day he's forgotten. Funny enough, even my favorite uh one of my favorite magazines, the The Atlantic, put out a special edition for the 250th year, and they were um you know talking about famous people, founders, founding fathers, and they even overlooked Christmas Addicts, which I found quite surprising. But um, yeah, I think it's tremendously ironic that the that that the first person to shed blood for American freedom was a black person who he himself was free, he had freed himself. Sounds like it's a similar story to uh Frederick Douglass, but uh it's it's often forgotten that that was the case. That may even be more forgotten as we see uh a troubling thing happening with the current administration removing um any notifications of slavery, civil rights, uh kind of the bad news of America, um uh monuments and uh you know, placards and museums and so forth. So um we're kind of going back to trying to create a fairy tale. Funny enough, that was the fairy tale I was raised on, you know, that hey, America, and and and and hey folks, don't take this wrong. We love America, we're happy to be here. Um yeah I'm not gonna get out. What we do believe, what we do believe is that um that you do have to you have to be aware of the the darker parts of our history, you know, and everybody has it, and it it is part of history, and it doesn't make us any less. I think I think what we what we learn by being aware of that history is is we can prevent it and we can find better ways going forward. So you know, let's talk about um you know the the some of the the statements in the in the declaration of independence and how it conveniently ignores the fact that a whole race of people, some 20% of the United States population at the time was black, and they weren't included in this in this great idea of independence at the time.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

You know, Mark. I I I love you because you're hopeful. You you know, you you you you're you're a bright ray of sunshine on dark days. You know, you bring up Christmas addicts. I'm gonna find something, Mark, to play for you. I dear brother Stokely Carmichael, and and and you know what we do here with everybody, because because my father is always it's like he doesn't think that that we listen to him, and so every time you know we talk about the plumb line and he ain't on here. Well, yo, son, you gotta stick to education. You know, it's all about education. You gotta talk about education because education is the key here. Education is the key. And I'm like, pop, I'm an educator, man. I mean, everything I do is about education. I ain't gonna forget, but he's right, all of this is about education. So I did brother Stokely Carmichael, Kwame Tori. If anybody knows who he is, if you don't know who Stokely Carmichael was, or who changed his name to Kwame Tori, go look it up. And he he spoke on Christmas Addicts once, Mark. Okay, he was giving a speech about Christmas Addicts. This is back in the late 1960s, and he said, The first man to shed blood for this country in the Boston Massacre was a black man named Christmas Addicts. Christmas Addocks was the first man to shed blood for this country in the whole crowd. Cheers, yes, yes, yes, for Christmas Addicts. Christmas Addicts was great. And Stokely and his narky subservient. I mean, he he he's a he was a vicious dude. He just sat there for a minute and he says, Yes, Christmas Addicts did it, died for this country, and he was a damn fool. He was a damn fool, is what he was. He died for a country that had no love for him. Died for a country that had no love for him, and this is the question, right? What is America's relationship with black people now? Because you're right. You talk about the the declaration of independence, you know, talk about all men are created equal, but they be two whole slaves. The constitution, uh you build in the three-fifths compromise in that for political reasons, but still you're not recognizing black people's humanity. You know, you build out to the 1850s with the Dred Scott decision, right, uh of 57. And and this is really what leads them to the Civil War, right? Because John Brown says, Look, this is telling you what this is about. You get to Dred Scott, the Supreme Court of the United States writes down, they didn't just say they wrote it. Blacks have no rights that whites are bound to respect. A black man has no rights that a white man is bound to respect. That's brazen. Make the argument black people never meant to be citizens of this country. I mean, so the question is, what's the relationship now, Mark? What what what are y'all gonna talk about at your barbecue on July 4th? Because I'm not coming. I'm telling you, I don't celebrate July 4th. So, what is the state of American freedom right now? Or is the president right? Our dear president Trump, is he right? We need to forget all of this stuff. It puts America in a bad light, it just divides people. In fact, some of his people say slavery was a good thing, or black people learned a lot of good stuff.

SPEAKER_04 16:35

I've heard that one. I asked them what they think if they if somebody came in and bought their son this afternoon, took him home. Would you think that was a good thing? Yeah. Um, yeah, so I mean, what is the state? I mean, I can't speak for all of it, but um, I am afraid that it is it is sliding back, you know. I I think the idea of of the vision for the great the quote unquote great America was back to a time um when we felt comfortable being racist and and and it was okay to do that. And the 60s turned a lot of that around. The period I grew up in, you know, did a pretty good job of I wouldn't say it ended the Ku Klux Klan, but it definitely chased them back underground. And uh now I feel that while such groups I'm not sure whether they've proliferated or not, but the attitudes of those groups certainly have. So that's what I see coming back. Again, you know, my fear is um erasing that history or let's you know hiding that history, and and that's a problem. Yeah. So speaking of education, how many people raise your hands out there, uh, folks, who knew Christmas Addocks was, huh?

SPEAKER_02 18:02

Well, and and I think that that a serious and sophisticated, a mature understanding of American history is needed for all of us. First of all, you understand that America was founded on those contradictions of you know, founding father saying all men are created equal, but a good percentage of us own slaves. You you know, you talk about the the vote, but only property holding white men could vote when the country was was founded. You know, you're regarding black people literally as another species, you know. Uh, if you want to talk about white Christian nationalism now, white Christian nationalism is really rooted in a real religious philosophy that runs all the way back to during slavery, where white Christians were making the argument that God cursed black people and black people by divine decree should be slaves. So that that stuff isn't new. Some of the things that we were taught in school that are clearly lies are historically inaccurate. Folks are told that the emancipation proclamation of 1863 freed the slaves, it did not. Lincoln, the emancipation proclamation theoretically freed the slaves in the states that were in rebellion, but during that time, the confederate states did not see themselves as part of the union. Lincoln was not president of the confederacy, and so I bet you I could go out on the streets right now, Mark, and ask a hundred people who was the president of the Confederacy, and 90 of them wouldn't be able to answer. I guarantee you, that's the state of American education. They don't know that the president of the Confederacy was a guy named Jefferson Davis. Now, let me give you a nice little uh trivia fact, Mark. As I'm here in in Louisville, Kentucky, in the wasteland, the eighth whitest state in the country, the eighth whitest state in the country, sitting in the city of Louisville, never elected a black female or hispanic mayor. It is it is one of two of the top 50 cities of the large 50 largest cities in the country to never elect a black, hispanic, or female mayor, the other city being Indianapolis, but Indianapolis is getting ready to elect a black mayor in the fall, so Louisville will stand alone. So here I am in the belly of the beach, the wasteland, right? But there's still a very, very vibrant anti-diversity movement in the state of Kentucky. Now, how the hell do you justify that? But what people don't know, even though Jefferson Davis made his bones in Alabama, he was born in Kentucky. Even though Lincoln made his bones in Illinois, he was born in Kentucky. So the president of the Union and the president of the Confederacy during the Civil War were both Kentuckians, which is scary as hell. But the Emancipation Proclamation freed no one, no one slaves were not freed until the 13th Amendment in 1865, right? And the state of Kentucky didn't ratify the 13th amendment until 1976. They waited until 1976 to ratify the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendment. So this this is history, right? But it's not just history, it's also something that informs us about contemporary politics and contemporary ideologies. Because here's a big question, and audience, I want you all to think about this. You're listening to Shelley's Plum Line, the most conscious father-son podcast in the universe, Sans, my father, Shelley the Playboy Stewart. We got him locked away in a room back there, making him drink some bourbon. So he will not use his voice for a while. I'm sorry, Pop, but you you're banned from the air right now. Get stronger and we'll let you go on. But here's a question for you to think about, Mark. I want you to maul on this, and I want the audience to maul on as you as we are running from Juneteenth to July 4th to August 8th. Who really won the Civil War? There is an argument that can be made that the Confederacy actually won the Civil War ideologically. That the ideology of white supremacy, white dominance, white Hegemony really is the most powerful ideology driving politics in this country today. Remember, after the Civil War, you get Confederate memorials, you get Confederate statues. We're not like Germany. You ain't gonna find a military base in Germany named after no damn Nazi. Okay. I mean, this is real talk. Think about it. No, I know it's a crime, it's a crime to fly a swastika in Germany. Yeah, but in this country, we got Confederate statues, Confederate memorials. We got military bases named after Confederates, we got streets named after Confederates, right? And we had past presidencies, like we're gonna rename these bases. Our dear brother Donald Trump came like, no, no, we're changing them bases back to those confederate names. What kind of madness is this? And our politics right now, people want to, oh, this is against DEI. No, my argument is that what's happening right now, you mentioned it, Mark. You said you grew up during the civil rights movement. Two decades of one of some of the greatest gains in this country were a century apart, the 1860s and then the 1960s. I make the argument that these politicians who say they want to quote unquote make America great again right now, they are trying to roll back the gains of the civil rights movement and put black people in their places and set up an educational system where they can indoctrinate yet another generation of white conservatives slash white supremacists. What say you, Mark Jamrod, about my thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_04 23:43

I think it's a pretty cutting and accurate description. Yeah. I mean, I can't really go much deeper than that. I think you nailed it. I think you nailed it right on the head.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Um, I don't want to be right.

SPEAKER_04 23:55

Well, neither do I. I don't want you to be right either. It's as as Pop said, it's it is education, and and that's sadly it's going downward at at the moment. Trending down.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Yeah. Yeah. It's trending down. What do you think about Christmas addicts, man, and all these other black people that run around dying for America? You you feel like them? Or you feel like Stokely Carmichael had a point?

SPEAKER_04 24:25

Maybe he's hopeful. Um no, I I I think uh here's the here's what I think. You know, religions, uh, philosophies, um the the noble language of the constitution, the preamble, the declaration of independence. Um some of these things are things that we hope for, right? We all read the Bible, we all can't live the Bible. But what we want to do, you know, is it it's the North Star that we aim at. And that's that's the way I like to think of it. Um again, maybe you're right. Maybe I am too hopeful, maybe I am too optimistic. Um, but I just know human nature too. And we we aspire, we aspire to greatness, and you have to have that target to reach for.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

And wait a minute, wait a minute, Mark. Let me challenge you. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Let me challenge you on this, Mark Jamrol. All right. We aspire to greatness. Who is this we you talking about? Well, maybe me. Oh, you, oh maybe it is not everyone, you know. The few people, the people that you know aspire to to greatness.

SPEAKER_04 25:44

I don't know. Yeah, well, it's you and Shelly, right? But um, yeah, I mean there's that too. So well there's you know, people have their own interpretation of what it is, and and and they include themselves only. It doesn't include others, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Well, this is my question, man. You know, my issue, and and I was talking to my sister about this, and for people people know that, you know, I I teach, um, I teach black studies. I'm a political scientist by training, but I teach in the black studies department at the University of Louisville, which was a great department. And let me say, before the University of Louisville gets on me, because I've been talking this stuff, man, for 30 years, Mark. 30 years, yeah, been writing, been talking, you know, been been been organized with people, and I've never had anybody uh from the university say, Okay, we got a problem. Some you say, you know, they they generally just leave me alone. But I I wrote a column because I write for the USA Today Network in the Louisville Courier Journal, Pulitzer Prize winning paper. And um, an administrator from the University of Louisville contacted me some months ago and said, Um, you know, your basically your your column doesn't have a disclaimer that um you know you don't speak for the university, and and it it could violate our neutrality uh stance. So, you know, we need you to to to say that that'll protect you. And I'm like, how the hell is it gonna protect me? I think it's it's gonna protect you, but so but I'm duty bound though to say that the University of Louisville does not approve of my message, they don't approve of a damn thing that I say, they don't approve of me believing in freedom, equality, and black power, they don't approve of me and my arguments about humanity, they don't approve of any of it because they are neutral. In effect, they would see some white supremacists lynching babies out in the god in the doggone town square, and they would say, We can't do nothing to save them babies because we are neutral. So the University of Louisville does not approve of my message, and I do not approve of theirs. But I was talking to my sister, and we were talking about how just a decade ago, man, our black studies department is one of the strongest in the country. I mean, the first black studies department in the South to offer a PhD. I mean, we were rolling in cash with money that we made making through distance education, one of the largest departments in the country, committed to education, committed to these historical corrections, committed to moving forward contemporarily. And now we are at risk. And not only are we at risk, so many other departments are at risk, so many other educational initiatives and institutions are at risk, so many institutions like NAACP, scholarship programs for black students, all of these things are at risk or have been eradicated, and it moved fast. I mean, we could not have seen this coming 10 years ago or even five. It has moved that fast. So when you say we aspire to greatness, we aspire to being better, I don't know who we are anymore, man. You know, I'm looking at some of the stuff that's happening in this country, stuff that is brazenly overtly racist, and some of the people who don't say a word about it, people who are in positions of power, and that worries me because as Martin Luther King Jr. said in the end, maybe it won't even matter what you know the actions or the words of our enemies were, but what will matter was the silence of our friends, or I would add our so-called friends. So as we go through Juneteenth, July 4th, which has been commercialized to the point that nobody even knows what the hell they mean, right? Even August 8th, that folks haven't really paid attention to, you know, we really need to have some conversations about what American freedom, equality, and citizenship and peace really, really do mean because I think some lies being told, man. I call BS on all of this. How you feel, man?

SPEAKER_04 29:56

I think you're right. I I see your point. So you agree with me now. Who is the we?

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Yeah, who is the we?

SPEAKER_04 30:04

Who is the we?

SPEAKER_02 30:05

So, Mark, I'm telling you, man, I'm gonna be be riding around. I'm gonna be riding around coming by your house or wherever you are on July 4th. And if I smell any smoke from a barbecue grill, I'm beating everybody up. Nobody needs to be barbecuing on July 4th, Mark Jamrod. All right, we won't. Oh, that was too easy. You gave up too easy. You gave up too easy. Good stuff, man. Good stuff. Well, I know you've been a little under the weather, so have I, the old man has been under the weather. Everybody's been sick, but we're still soldiering through. Uh, Shelly Stewart, Shelley the Playboy Stewart. This is for you, man. Feel better, stop being honory, stop trying to come back too fast, stop trying to tell people that we somehow abusing you. We're not abusing you, we're loving you, we're respecting you, we celebrating you, even in absentia. We got big love for you, oh man. Audience, we got big love for y'all. We are trying to prompt you to think. Go read a little bit, go out, read about Christmas Addicts, read about Stokely Carmichael's critique of Christmas Addicts, read about the American Revolution, that could help. Yeah, read about the Civil War, read about Juneteenth, July 4th, and August the 8th. And ask yourself, where are we now? You got any last words for the people today, Mark Jamrod?

SPEAKER_04 31:28

And ask yourself, who are we? Yes, and we who are we? What we are we part of. What we what we are we a part of.

SPEAKER_02 31:39

Until next time, again, I tell you to subscribe, like, share with your friends. Tell them all about Shelley's plumb line. Tell them about Mark Jamroz and how he's bringing all this knowledge to the world along with your boy here, Dr. Ricky Jones, trying to keep up with Mark, one of the smartest people I have ever met.

SPEAKER_04 31:56

Get out of here, man. It's all you.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

Oh, nah, bruh. Until next time, Mark what there's my side, there's your side. And somewhere in the middle, right? Somewhere in the middle.

SPEAKER_04 32:08

There's the truth.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

We're gonna get that straight one day without my father here, man. He probably gonna cuss us out and be like, Y'all can't even get the closing lines. We appreciate y'all listening to Shelly's Plum Line. Until next time. All right, keep on, keeping on. Love you, man. We'll see ya.

SPEAKER_04 33:05

This episode of Shelly's Plum Line was written, produced, and edited by Dr. Shelly Stewart, Mark Jamlas, and Dr. Ricky Jones. It was produced by Stewart Productions at the Plumline Studios in Stuart Caliband. If you are a fan of Shelly's Plum Line and you like what we are doing here, please remember to subscribe on your podcast platform of choice. Give us a review and show this podcast to start us to follow us and continue to cut us data on Facebook.