Boston’s political leaders liked that idea, but they preferred a speaker and venue more mainstream and respectable than Dr. Young in a weaving workshop.
The selectmen therefore asked South Latin School usher James Lovell to deliver a memorial oration at the Old South Meeting-House in April. The town then paid to publish Lovell’s speech. (Dr. Young’s speech, in contrast, has been lost.)
The town made the Massacre memorial oration an annual tradition until 1783, usually inviting a rising young gentleman to speak. After America’s victory in the Revolutionary War had brought sufficient retribution for the Massacre, the town shifted the date of the annual oration from the 5th of March to the 4th of July.
Massachusetts nurtured some of the most celebrated orators of the nineteenth century, including Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, and Frederick Douglass. Whenever a monument or statue was dedicated in the city, or a major historical anniversary commemorated, an orator was on the program.
To revive “the tradition of public oration as a tool of civic action,” the Bostonian Society is teaming with Brown Art Ink, a “nomadic community incubator” for a series of free public programs starting this weekend. The press release about the Think/Write/Speak initiative says: “Participants in these workshops will be led by local artists in exercises to develop original orations to highlight issues important to their own communities.”
The first workshop session will take place from 3:00 to 4:30 P.M. on Saturday, 14 December, in the Commonwealth Salon at the central branch of the Boston Public Library. It is free and open to the public, but participants should register through the society’s website.
There will be two more such public workshops in early 2020. Select participants will be invited to perform their orations at a commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre.
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