Crispus Attucks Community Center

Educate. Empower. Support.

Crispus Attucks Community Center strives to improve the quality of life for youth and families in Lancaster by providing services that promote community prosperity, and by offering programs and cultural events that celebrate and preserve African American heritage.

The Center hosts community-wide cultural events, including the Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast, Black History Month events, and a Juneteenth Celebration. The Center is also home base for the African American Veterans Project and the African American Historical Society.

address | 407 Howard Avenue, Lancaster, PA 17602

Free Food Resources

We offer a number of free food resources at the Center. No matter your circumstance, you are welcome here.

Community meals at our cafe every Tuesday & Thursday from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. No cafe appointment needed.
Appointment-based choice food pantry the Second & Fourth Wednesday of every month from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Access Food Resources

Young Professionals of Color Network (YPOC)

Young Professionals of Color Network (YPOC) is a free member collective where young BIPOC professionals can network and engage in conversation on social and civic issues. Our hope is to build a safe space of inspiration and connection where personal and professional growth can thrive. To join, email marketing@caplanc.org.

Attucks Academy Elite

At Attucks Academy Elite, our mission is to empower young men by providing them with a top-notch education, leadership development, and opportunities for personal growth. Through rigorous academics, mentorship, and specialized activities, we prepare these young men to become future leaders and make a positive impact in their communities.

Attucks Academy Elite Application

Sincerely, Crispus Attucks

To honor the significance of Juneteenth and to celebrate multiple generations of Black leadership and excellence in Lancaster, we partnered with MAKE/FILMS to create a series of videos titled “Sincerely, Crispus Attucks.” Each video features three generations of local Black leaders sharing letters detailing the inspiration they have drawn from the previous generation, with the eldest among them offering wisdom to future leaders.

Standing in the Face of Injustice

Crispus Attucks, our namesake at the Center, was born in 1723 to an enslaved man from Africa and a woman of indigenous Wampanoag-Natick ancestry. Attucks was enslaved in Framingham, Massachusetts for much of his early life. He fled white ownership to Boston when he was 27, and as a free man, Attucks worked as a skilled sailor on whaling ships and as a rope-maker.

In the mid-1700s, unjust British practices were causing skilled tradesmen like Crispus Attucks to lose their work to British soldiers. On March 5, 1770, a group of angry colonists, with Crispus Attucks bravely at the front, confronted a group of British soldiers. Tensions mounted quickly, with the British soldiers firing their muskets into the crowd after one of them was hit with a thrown object. Crispus Attucks was the first to fall when two musket balls ripped through his chest, alongside four other men who all lost their lives. This conflict came to be known as the Boston Massacre and the spark of the American Revolution.