African American Studies Commons^™

The Strange Life And Stranger Afterlife Of King Dick Including His Adventures In Haiti And Hollywood With Observations On The Construction Of Race, Class, Nationality, Gender, Slang Etymology And Religion, Alan Thomas Lipke

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Richard "King Dick" or "Big Dick" Crafus, Cephas, or Seaver(s) first attracted attention by his size, strength and the authority he exercised as leader of U.S. African American Prisoners of War in Britain during the War of 1812. After the War he was celebrated as a boxing pioneer, ceremonial King of Boston's black community and almost certainly auxiliary law officer. Very little has been known about his life, and much of that obscured by his black working-class status; his true standing within his own community remains mysterious. Yet paradoxically he's been made much of, in academic writing and fiction alike …