Forever Woke stamps - The “Figures of the American Revolution”


Posted On: Wednesday - April 22nd 2026 6:11PM MST
In Topics:   Political Correctness  History  Economics  Race/Genetics  Female Stupidity  Inflation

There are lots of news items to write about - the truth coming out about $PLC scamming, a host of stories on the Trump Administration’s fight against the PRP, the Iran war that I’m too disgusted with to write about - so let’s get back to stamps today, shall we?


Going back 3 3/4 years and then a year before then, Peak Stupidity had a 3-part series on the “Forever” US postage stamps. Some of us still do mail bill payments, but I haven’t sent a real hand-written letter in the mail this century, AFAIR. Part 1 and Part 2 of the series were a thought experiment of sorts - though one can surely actually participate in postage-space - about these “Forever” stamps as a form of money, and, if not that, surely a hedge against inflation. From the intro. in Part 1:
it's been 15 years since the first ones, featuring the Liberty Bell, a shown above, were issued and sold.* 4 years later, in '11, all 1st-class stamps (as in made to send anything enclosed in an envelope weighing 1 oz or less) were issued as forever stamps.

I have a dim memory of 1st-class postage stamps going up into the double digit cents. The rise of stamp prices was pretty steady over the last half-century. (I'll have to find or make a graph another time.) The forever stamps came out at the time this postage went from 39¢ to 41¢. The year 2007 was near the end of the time that my instinct tells me was a period of the lowest price inflation in my lifetime anyway.. (This is something discussed 4 years ago in the Peak Stupidity post Inflation and Chinese Imports and Exports.) Having dealt with inflation the rest of my life, though, I was gung-ho for these stamps. Why not stock up on them, as long as I don't forget where I put them?
I neglected to really explain this well for younger Peak Stupidity readers. (The really young readers have no reason to give a damn.): Before the Forever Stamp concept, the postage value, in cents, was marked on the stamps. When the 1st Class postage* went from, say, 15¢ to 18¢, if you still had some 15¢ stamps left, in order to use them, you would have to stick on three 1¢ stamps with them or one 1¢ stamp and one 2¢. As with coins, they had enough denominations to cover most situations. (Occasionally, your stamps might take up half the envelope though!).

Once you ran out of the old, you bought the new ones, then a year, maybe five years later, it happened again. The Forever Stamps, covering 1st Class postage, did away with all that mess and had another benefit of being that inflation hedge, if you didn’t lose them.

Next, in Forever and ever stamps - Part 3: Racial profiling and the Mighty Mississippi , I got into the Political Correctness, now Wokeness, of the stamps being issued. Note the sheet of stamps up top. For the very same usual reasons, I bought 5 sheets of the new Declaration of Independence stamps, actually Figures** of the American Revolution, and these sheets have 25 sheets on them rather than the usual 20. That’s 125 @ $0.78 = $93.75, plus whatever it was I came there to mail… oh yeah, my taxes, so this was right at a week ago.

I didn’t take a deep look at the stamps, but I did notice “Hey, some White men on the stamps this time! What a relief.” “I’ll take 5!” I didn’t have to choose puppies or Nancy Reagan again, though I did like the Mississippi stamps and the astronomy ones.

Upon a closer look in the sunshine, I wondered who are these women here and the dude with a Mohawk. I didn’t know that hair style had been around so long. OK, he’s a balding guy who had made a valid effort at a Mohawk… or, he’s a Mohawk.

Here’s what we have in our collection of 25 Figures** of the American Revolution:
- Only 16 of the 25 (64%) are White men.

- Of these 16 White men, one was a Spaniard, one a Frenchman, one a Pole, and one a Prussian.

- That leaves only 12 of the 25 (48%) stamps commemorating White American Colonists, and Thomas Paine looks heavily tanned at that.

- There are 2 Indians (8%). The first (1st row / 3rd column) has a name that I don’t even feel like re-spelling, and the other is named Cornplanter. The colonists may have very well planted plenty of sweet corn, but English-descended American colonists don’t name their boys “Cornplanter”, I don’t care where the colony is. Plus, he’s wearing some kind of gay hat.

- There is 1 half-black man (3rd row / 2nd column), named Lemuel Haynes, out of Hartford, Connecticut. Of course, his accomplishments, besides having fought in a militia during the war (like nearly a quarter million other men!) were his blackety-black activities afterwards. He’s a token here.

- There are 5 women commemorated. One is John Adams’ wife. Did they really run out of important American Revolutionaries?

- One of the 5 women is black, going by the name of Elizabeth Freeman, also on the sheet of stamps due to that slavery business only. She did LIVE during the time of the American Revolution - I’ll grant her that!
OK, look, the Frenchman, Spaniard, Pole and the Prussian guy and the 2 Indians, I’m not delving into the history now, but they probably helped. You’ve got 5 women, none of whom would have fought a lick. Sure, baking cookies, I get it, and I kid just a bit. The black woman, nah, she’s there to help us feel bad about that slavery thing, and same with the half-black man.

Still, any American historian of the period could have come up with hundreds of deserving White American Colonists that played a bigger part than all but the 12 men that DESERVE to be on there. I could bring the stamps back to the Post Office, but then I’ll just get puppy dogs or something.

The real question here is, at the rate this country is descending into nothing ANY of those people on the stamps would have imagined, what will last longer, America, or my 5 sheets of Forever Stamps?


* Yes, I really had better explain this too: That 1st Class postage was the price of mailing a letter of up to an ounce. Mailing a non-private post card (open for the world to see) was always significantly cheaper, maybe 60% the price of 1st Class mail. Then, as there is now, but without the stupid LCD screen at the Post Office to slow one down, there were many other varying rates for bigger/heavier items, air versus ground, etc…

** Ahaaa, of course not “Men of the American Revolution”, as that would be highly un-Woke, but “Figures” is most certainly in there to remind us of those not-so-awfully-important “Hidden Figure” types.

Yep. It could have been “People of the American Revolution”, though that would work better as “People of the Khmer Rouge Revolution” or something like that. Those Commie Cambodians were too poor to send letters even, so how about “People of the People’s Cultural Revolution” for a set of Chinese stamps? Each of the collectible sets would have the same picture of Chairman Mao.

Comments:
Moderator
Thursday - April 23rd 2026 12:49PM MST
PS: “ Is it just me or does Elizabeth Freeman (on the forever stamp) look like George Floyd?”

Or George Foreman, six of one, a dozen of the other… no, looks like she took a hit from George Foreman.
Adam Smith
Thursday - April 23rd 2026 7:40AM MST
PS: Good morning, Achmed!

Facts: 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒 𝐶ℎ𝑢𝑐𝑘 70 𝐻𝑖𝑔ℎ ‘𝐵𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐷𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝐵𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑟𝑠’ 𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑏𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑎𝑐𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑎’𝑠 𝐶𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑝𝑢𝑠 𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑢𝑐𝑘𝑠 𝑇𝑖𝑔𝑒𝑟𝑠, 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑖𝑛 1955 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙-𝑏𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑘 ℎ𝑖𝑔ℎ 𝑠𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑙 𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑘𝑒𝑡𝑏𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡𝑒𝑎𝑚 𝑡𝑜 𝑤𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑖𝑔ℎ-𝑡𝑜𝑝 𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑠 𝑎 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑒 𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑓𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙 ℎ𝑒𝑒𝑙, 𝑎 𝑠𝑦𝑚𝑏𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑐 𝑛𝑜𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝐶𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑝𝑢𝑠 𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑢𝑐𝑘𝑠’ 𝑓𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑡𝑙𝑒𝑠. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑖𝑔𝑒𝑟𝑠’ 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑜 𝑎𝑑𝑜𝑟𝑛𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑢𝑒, 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑒𝑎𝑚’𝑠 𝑦𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑟𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑢𝑏𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑚𝑖𝑑𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑒.

https://wibc.com/102316/converse-shoes-to-honor-1955-crispus-attucks-basketball-team/

https://www.converse.com.au/stories/breaking-down-barriers-attucks

Converse released these in 2021 at the height of niggermania. Which reminds me... Is it just me or does Elizabeth Freeman (on the forever stamp) look like George Floyd?

☮️

Moderator
Thursday - April 23rd 2026 7:01AM MST
PS: Did Crispus Attucks put his life, fortune, and sacred honor on the line, IM WRITING? I’m gonna pull out my copy of the Declaration of Independence and see if his John Hancock is on there somewhere. Perhaps historians have missed it.

I’ll check out your links, Adam. I’m wondering what the marketing strategy was for the Converse sneakers: “In Converse Crispies, you can outrun your average Lobsterback… to save your life, shoes, and sacred honor.
Adam Smith
Thursday - April 23rd 2026 6:26AM MST
PS: Good morning, gentlemen,

Crispus Attucks? The Founding Father?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/267158502153

(The googlebot says Attucks is "widely recognized as the first 𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑦𝑟 of the American Revolution")

A martyr (Greek: μάρτυς, mártys, 'witness' stem μαρτυρ-, martyr-) is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party. 🤔


𝐷𝑖𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑜 𝑎 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑚𝑝 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑜𝑛𝑜𝑟 𝐶𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑝𝑢𝑠 𝐴𝑡𝑡𝑢𝑐𝑘𝑠?

I am happy to report that Yes! there is a stamp honoring Crispus Attucks...

https://meditative-philately.com/cdn/shop/products/A34-203_1024x1024.jpg
https://www.ebay.com/itm/336524474052

(It's not a USPS stamp but it 𝑖𝑠 a stamp.)


But wait. There's more...
https://www.usmint.gov/learn/coins-and-medals/commemorative-coins/black-revolutionary-war-patriots
https://www.ebay.com/itm/188298993265
https://www.ebay.com/itm/178052114808
https://www.ebay.com/itm/135071369444

There's even some schools named after him...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crispus_Attucks_High_School
https://www.schools.nyc.gov/schools/K021
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/AttucksMiddleSchoolHouston.JPG/960px-AttucksMiddleSchoolHouston.JPG


Damn... That's one shiny mulatto!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Crispus_Attucks.jpg/960px-Crispus_Attucks.jpg

Converse even made a commemorative sneaker with his name on it.

Honestly though, I think this one is my favorite.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/227208599692
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/6XkAAeSw8A5piMIM/s-l1600.webp

(All right now. Enough of this morning madness.)

I've got to get outside and finish fixing the old hrx217. I got the transmission all tuned up with a new belt and cable. (Moving faster than she has in years! Even the turtle is fast now.) But I goofed up something with the blade engage clutch cable yesterday. Lawnmowers are pretty useless if the blade won't spin. So...

I hope you guys have a great day!

☮️

Moderator
Thursday - April 23rd 2026 4:32AM MST
PS: At least there’s a name I’d heard before, Alarmist. That’s not from my elementary school, middle school, or HS history, as nothing was woke in that time and place. That’s probably the way they would put it, too, in the little blurb.
The Alarmist
Thursday - April 23rd 2026 2:38AM MST
PS

Did they ever do a stamp to honor Crispus Attucks … the African who was the first to give his life for the country other Africans would build?

🕉
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