Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Regiment

[Xipe Totec]

https://www.nps.gov/boaf/learn/historyculture/shaw.htm



The Robert Gould Shaw and Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial, located across Beacon Street from the State House, serves as a reminder of the heavy cost paid by individuals and families during the Civil War. In particular, it serves as a memorial to the group of men who were among the first African Americans to fight in that war. Although African Americans served in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, northern racist sentiments kept African Americans from taking up arms for the United States in the early years of the Civil War. However, a clause in Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation made possible the organization of African American volunteer regiments. The first documented African American regiment formed in the north was the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Infantry, instituted under Governor John Andrew in 1863. African American men came to enlist from every region of the north, and from as far away as the Caribbean. Robert Gould Shaw was the man Andrew chose to lead this regiment.

[demtenjeep]

1. The movie Glory is all about this

My students see the reality and it wakes them up

[Xipe Totec]

2. I've stood in front of that memorial

With the shinny city upon a hill at my back. Literally, Beacon Hill.

I've never been so proud of our history, and of Massachusetts, my adopted state.

[wryter2000]

3. Glory is amazing

Everyone should watch it.

[appalachiablue]

4. 'Glory,' Denzel Washington, Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman

- 'Glory' Trailer (1989). Frederick Douglass' two sons were members of the 54th Mass. Regiment, also Sojourner Truth's grandson.



- 54th Mass. Sergeant William Harvey Carney who participated in the Battle of Ft. Wagner, July 18, 1863, was later awarded the Medal of Honor for grabbing the U.S. flag as the flag bearer fell, carrying the flag to the enemy ramparts and back, and singing "Boys, the old flag never touched the ground!" While other African Americans had since been granted the award by the time it was presented to Carney, Carney's is the earliest action for which the Medal of Honor was awarded to an African American..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/54th_Massachusetts_Infantry_Regiment