Alabamians may find themselves quoting Longfellow today. Governor Key Ivey says the state will join the nation in a commemoration known as “two lights for the future.” The day remembers the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Paul Revere’s famous midnight ride during the Revolutionary War. Longfellow wrote about it in his poem. Professor Harold Selesky teaches about the war for independence at the University of Alabama. He says Revere wasn’t the only messenger spreading the word…
“Paul Revere was most prominent,” said Selesky. “He's a silversmith in Boston and probably best known official. He had written to New Hampshire in previous days, and he had gone once as far as New York to carry information.”
The remembrance of Revere’s famous ride is considered the opening act of the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, also known as the nation’s “semi- quincentennial.” The observance will take place on July 4, 2026. School students may remember Paul Revere by the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Selesky says the poet was just repeating what he heard…
“A story widely known in the memory and by people at the time so Longfellow was just putting into words, memorable words, the story that basically everybody knew," he recalled.
Alabama counties are remembering Paul Revere by displaying two lights in the windows of private homes, state office buildings, and businesses. Two lanterns were hung in the Old North Church in Boston to signal colonials residents that British troops were approaching by sea. Selesky explained what was going on at the time.
“The Commander in Chief, British commander in chief of North America, who is simultaneously the royal governor of Massachusetts, received a direct order from the Secretary, the Secretary of State for Colonial affairs in Britain, to confiscate a war like supplies accumulated, accumulated by the resisters in Concord, Massachusetts, 20 miles west of Boston,” Selesky said. “And, he mounted, began to mount an expedition. And, intelligence security in Boston was not high, so the resistors, the activists, found out what gate was intending to do, and in the long standing, means that they had put in place to alert not only other towns in Massachusetts, but other colonies as well, sent post riders to alert the countryside. So Revere is sent out to alert the countryside that the British are about to move out. The message is, the regulars are out. The British regulars are out. He never, as I say, said the British were coming because, Revere was himself, British. They this. Revere was not the only dispatch rider to alert the countryside, several other people to most prominently did that as well. Revere managed to get the message out into the near towns to Boston, but was later captured by roving British patrols and never got to Concord. But the word was out, the word spread, and the response all told on that day, 19 April, 1775 was on the order of 20,000 people, or at least that men, or at least that was the number that the Massachusetts Assembly eventually paid for service on that day, of course, 20,000 men never, never actually came within shot of the British expedition. Maybe that total was four to 5,001st light on Lexington green on 19 April, an encounter occurred, not planned by either side, sort of an accident waiting to happen, that Americans were killed. The British government had conquered. They tried to confiscate supplies, but the rebels had moved those supplies, given the alert that Revere had announced to the countryside, and the British were unsuccessful.”
