Now is the perfect time to uncancel the minutemen, the Revolutionary War marksmen who were ready to defend their towns at a moment’s notice.
This week marks the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, where Massachusetts minutemen fought on April 18-19, 1775, to defend these towns against British soldiers who tried to seize their guns and gunpowder.
In recent years, however, some have tried to cancel the heroic minutemen.
In August 2023, Fox News reported that California’s Concord High School had canceled its mascot, the minutemen, because the school’s leadership believed that minority students could not relate to these Revolutionary War heroes based on race.
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Applying identity politics to the minutemen is debased. Why? Black men served as minutemen. One of them was Peter Salem, who ran from his home town, Framingham, to fight at the Battle of Concord alongside Lawson Buckminster, the man who’d freed him from slavery.
Salem’s story is featured in the new movie, “The American Miracle,” which will be in theaters June 9-11, 2025. The author of this article is an on-camera scholar in the film.
Unfortunately, Americans have become increasingly debased about their nation’s history, especially about America’s founding era. The last Hollywood feature film about the American Revolution was released more than 20 years ago, Mel Gibson’s “The Patriot.”
Nationwide protests in 2020 attacked sculptures of American heroes, including George Washington and other founders from the era. Most telling of all, however, is a terrible statistic. Only 13% of eighth graders are proficient in American history, according to a 2023 U.S. Department of Education report.
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In 1772, John Adams, who later became America’s second president, warned his fellow Bostonians about debasing and corrupting the population through distorted perspectives. He believed that tyranny would flourish if lies, instead of truth, permeated the people’s understanding of important topics.
“The preservation of liberty depends upon the intellectual and moral character of the people. As long as knowledge and virtue are diffused generally among the body of a nation, it is impossible they should be enslaved. This can be brought to pass only by debasing their understandings or by corrupting their hearts,” Adams wrote.
Adams was correct. The rise of cancel culture in the United States has led to distorted perspectives of America’s history. Americans have become debased. Truth has been distorted. Grievance has replaced gratitude. Fortunately, the nation’s 250th anniversary provides an opportunity for Americans to renew their understanding of the sacrifices made for liberty during the American Revolution.
At 10 o’clock at night on April 18, 1775, messengers, such as silversmith Paul Revere, rode on horseback throughout the Massachusetts countryside to warn residents that British soldiers were marching toward them.
Revere was tasked with going “to Lexington and inform Mr. Samuel Adams and the Honorable John Hancock that there was a number of soldiers composed of the light troops and grenadiers marching… to Lexington or… to Concord.”
Adams and Hancock were the leaders of the Sons of Liberty. Revere ordered two lanterns to hang in the steeple of Old North Church to signal patriots across the water in Charlestown that British soldiers were crossing the river instead of traveling solely on land.
In a deposition, Paul Revere described the moment that he was captured by a British officer during his midnight ride. The Briton “clapped his pistol to my head and said he was going to ask me some questions and if I did not tell the truth, he would blow my brains out. I replied that… I would tell the truth, for I was not afraid.”
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Forced to ride with British officers, Revere heard gunfire when they were about a half a mile from Lexington. Eventually, the British let him go, but not before cutting the saddle off his horse.
Thanks to Revere and other messengers, dozens of minutemen rushed to Lexington and Concord to prevent the British from capturing their gunpowder stores.
The truth of Black men serving as minutemen has been available for decades. Ardent abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote “The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution” in 1855. Believing that “courage and bravery” are of no “particular race or complexion,” Stowe was known for writing “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” which played a role in the start of the Civil War.
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“In Colored Patriots,” Stowe reported on the numerous Black men who contributed to the American Revolution. In addition to Peter Salem, she pointed out that Henry Hill and Toney Proctor were also Black men who fought at the Battle of Lexington and several other battles.
Lemuel Haynes, a Black man from Connecticut, joined the army after the Battle of Lexington. As many as 5,000 black men fought throughout the American Revolution in various capacities.
Stowe also wrote about Peter Salem’s heroism on June 17, 1775, at the Battle of Bunker Hill, which also turns 250 this year.
“Major Pitcairn caused the first effusion of blood at Lexington,” she explained about the British major who ordered his men to shoot at the patriots at the Battle of Lexington. At the Battle of Bunker Hill two months later, “a black soldier named Salem shot him (Pitcairn) through, and he fell.…. and he (Salem) was presented to (General) Washington as having performed this feat.”
To celebrate America’s 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Two Lights for Tomorrow, is calling on all Americans to hang two lights in their windows across the nation on April 18. It’s time to un-cancel the minutemen and commemorate the heroes of Lexington and Concord, such as Paul Revere and Peter Salem.