1975 10c Contributors to the Cause: Salem Poor

U.S. #1560
1975 10¢ Salem Poor
Contributors to the Cause Series
Issue Date: March 25, 1975
City: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Quantity: 157,865,000
Printed By: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method: Photogravure
Perforations: 11 x 10 ½
Color: Multicolored

U.S. Scott #1560 is a 10-cent commemorative stamp issued on March 25, 1975, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as part of the American Bicentennial "Contributors to the Cause" series. It was the second stamp in that four-stamp set, which also honored Sybil Ludington (8c), Haym Salomon (10c), and Peter Francisco (18c). A total of 157,865,000 copies were printed. The stamp depicts Salem Poor in the heat of battle, musket in hand, with the inscription "Gallant Soldier" beneath his name — a direct echo of the commendation his fellow officers wrote about him nearly two centuries earlier.

Salem Poor was born into slavery around 1747 in Andover, Massachusetts. In 1769, at age 22, he purchased his own freedom for 27 pounds — roughly a full year's wages for a working man. He enlisted in the colonial militia in May 1775 and fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, where his conduct under fire drew extraordinary notice. That December, 14 regimental officers — including Colonel William Prescott — signed a petition to the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony stating that Poor "behaved like an experienced officer, as well as an excellent soldier" and that "in the person of this said negro, centers a brave and gallant soldier." Of the thousands of colonists who fought at Bunker Hill, no other soldier was singled out for such formal recognition. Poor went on to serve through the entire Revolutionary War, fighting at Saratoga, White Plains, Valley Forge, and Monmouth before his discharge in 1780.

Scott #1560 holds a meaningful place in American philatelic history as one of the relatively few stamps of its era to honor an African American hero of the Revolutionary War. Issued during the nation's Bicentennial celebrations — the same year as the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill — the stamp brought long-overdue recognition to a man whose extraordinary courage had been largely overlooked for two centuries.

The Bicentennial Series

The U.S. Bicentennial was a series of celebrations during the mid-1970s that commemorated the historic events leading to America’s independence from Great Britain. The official events began on April 1, 1975, when the American Freedom Train departed Delaware to begin a 21-month, 25,338-mile tour of the 48 contiguous states. For more than a year, a wave of patriotism swept the nation as elaborate firework displays lit up skies across the U.S., an international fleet of tall-mast sailing ships gathered in New York City and Boston, and Queen Elizabeth made a state visit. The celebration culminated on July 4, 1976, with the 200th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. 

The U.S. Postal Service issued 113 commemorative stamps over a six-year period in honor of the U.S. bicentennial, beginning with the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission Emblem stamp (U.S. #1432). As a group, the Bicentennial Series chronicles one of our nation’s most important chapters, and remembers the events and patriots who made the U.S. a world model for liberty.