The Big Lie
Guest post by Kristine Schwartzman

After the Civil War, part of the Reconstruction plan included giving formerly enslaved Black Americans land, land owned by the very people who enslaved them. Intended to give freed Black people a start on building their lives, the plan died right along with Abraham Lincoln. 

In this groundbreaking historical investigation, Reveal tracks the lives of 1,250 freed people who were given land, only to have white supremacist Andrew Johnson, who became president after Lincoln’s death, pave the way for former enslavers and landowners, to get the land back. And, how they succeeded!

So, why bring this up now? Because the consequences still resound today. Reparations given, and then taken away - turned once hopeful lives into further toil and poverty that passed down through generations. Those families still pay the price of being kidnapped from their homes, and turned into property. This is not the “past.” It is now.

Nancy Kendall and Abraham Lincoln lived during unbelievably turbulent times. The trauma of those years was etched on Abraham Lincoln’s face.
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​I have asked myself, was Abraham Lincoln really an abolitionist? 

I have asked myself, was slavery endemic to our country’s very core?

I have asked myself, is racism so embedded in our economy and collective thought that it will always be present? Are we capable of evolving from the racism that supported the enslavement of human beings based on the color of their skin?

A recent Smithsonian Magazine article, “Meet the Black Men Who Changed Lincoln’s Mind About Civil Rights,” explores these questions.   

​Author Jonathan W. White*, describes the daring 1862 escape of one of those influential men, Robert Smalls, a 23-year-old slave who commandeered a Confederate steamer, and against extraordinary odds, freed himself, his family and 12 other enslaved people.

Smalls met with Abraham Lincoln at the White House after his bold escape, to plant the seeds of emancipation and equality for Black men. Lincoln previously rejected the idea of Black volunteers in his militia, but after this fortuitous meeting of the minds with Smalls, Lincoln embraced the idea of enlisting Black troops, as a way to physically fortify their forces in order to win the war.

However, the newly enlisted Black men were only paid half as much as their white counterparts. They also had the added risk of deadly consequences if captured.     

Other petitioners, Arnold Bertonneau, Jean Baptiste Roudanez and Union Army surgeon, Anderson Ruffin Abbott appealed to Lincoln with the argument that the free Black men who had fought for the North, had “spilled their blood” and deserved to be treated equally with both pay and the unalienable rights they felt they had earned, one of which was the right to vote.

Lincoln agreed that “there was no reason that intelligent Black men should not vote.” He did not feel it was necessary to extend voting rights to those who were poor, uneducated, those who were born into bondage or those “who had not fought gallantly in our ranks.”

The evolution of his thinking had grave personal consequences. On April 11, 1865, John Wilkes Booth grew angry as he listened to Lincoln’s speech publicly calling for educated Black men and those who had served as soldiers to be given the right to vote. Three days later, Booth gunned Lincoln down.

In our history books, Lincoln his often lauded as a great abolitionist whose beliefs were the catalyst that started the conversation and the ensuing struggle for equality for Black Americans. A deeper delve into history, though, shines a light on his emerging enlightenment on this issue.

​For the first 30+ years of his career in public service, he ridiculed the thought of equality for Black men. In his final days, he took the opposite position, but only for the Black men he felt were worthy of those rights by their actions.

While his beliefs were changing with the help of these brave men advocating for full equality for all their brethren, he was not yet willing to grant those rights to all men of color. Some of his earlier held beliefs remained unchanged. Yet, Lincoln opined that he had “labored hard…for the good of the colored race” and “would continue to do so.”

Most of us abhor the notion of racism, and consider ourselves evolved from those views. Yet do we, like Lincoln, still also harbor bits of unconscious bias? It has only been very recently that we have begun to recognize and revise the subtle remnants of racism in the world around us.

Have we all looked within ourselves to examine if our own beliefs truly support equal treatment of all human beings? Are there things we could do better?    

Few of us look at a photo or drawing of Abraham Lincoln without seeing the sorrow and sadness in his eyes. I've often thought you could drown in those eyes. 

In historian Doris Kearns Goodwin's TED Talk, "Lessons from Past Presidents," Goodwin points out that so many years after his presidency and the turmoil of the Civil War, we think of Lincoln as a deeply wounded, melancholy man who suffered unimaginable loss. 

I think most of us have experienced a type of grief, and even guilt for feeling happy when so much suffering goes on in the world. I know I have.

Sometimes, grief and sorrow become the catalyst for action. My great-great-grandmother, Nancy Kendall, used her sorrow over slavery to help fugitive slaves escape. Most of us don't fall into a hole and hide when we're sad. Not for long, anyway. That sorrow is not our complete essence, but a part of who we are as people. And, it wasn't Abraham Lincoln's complete essence, either. 

Often forgotten when we look into those eyes, is the humor, affability and wit that was Abraham Lincoln. He was a storyteller. And, he was a great one.

Undoubtedly, much of the charm is lost in simply reading Lincoln's yarns. What's missing is the way he told them. He was animated and laughed as he told his tales. Listeners were captivated.

Not a storyteller in the traditional sense, Lincoln wasn't apt to just sit and "tell a story." Instead, says Doris Kearns Goodwin, in her book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln '"Lincoln’s form of storytelling demonstrated his “extraordinary ability to convey practical wisdom in the form of humorous tales his listeners could remember and repeat.”' 
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The Gutenberg Project's "Lincoln's Yarns and Stories," by Alexander K. McClure, is available free online. It's a vast collection of stories, witticisms, humor, and illustrations that give us a different side of the sad, sorrowful man we think we know. 

​Perhaps it's time to look at Lincoln's eyes and see beyond the sorrow. 

* From the story, Getting Rid of an Elephant, related by Charles A. Dana, 1819-1897, Assistant Secretary of War.

The year is 1863.
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In the west, as many as 15,000 Chinese immigrants do the dangerous, backbreaking work of blazing a path across the US to make the Transcontinental Railroad a reality. As they dynamite their way west, thousands die.

In other parts of the country, hundreds of thousands, indeed millions of enslaved people bend over under the scorching sun, toil in the vast fields of cotton, rice and tobacco, to build the very economic backbone of the United States. Many will perish. Others will be enslaved for the length of their lives. A few will try to escape on the Underground Railroad.

So lucrative and profitable are the industries dependent on millions of slave workers, that when the issue of slavery became a national conversation, with two opposing positions, the result was the bloody, destructive Civil War. This was possibly the most traumatic and destructive period in the life of our nation.

The Chinese immigrant history is long-standing, complicated, tragic, and similar in some aspects to that of the enslaved. Below is a brief overview of one chapter in the lives of Chinese immigrants in America:
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I have always been moved by the story behind the Statue of Liberty, which in my mind, is the quintessential heart of the United States of America.

I do so hope we can live up to that gift from France. One has only to read the beautiful accompanying poem by Emma Lazarus to feel how encompassing our country could be.   

​It reads, in part:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

We are, indeed, a nation of immigrants. I can’t forget what a huge part the fabric of our nation was woven by members of the African and Chinese cultures as well as other slaves, indentured servants and immigrants.

Sometimes, as I fall asleep at night, I listen to the music written to accompany the Statue of Liberty poem. Call me schmaltzy. That’s OK. 
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​For a more in-depth look at the Transcontinental Railroad and the workers who built it, watch the documentary, “The Transcontinental Railroad: Amazing American History: "
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​Note: The Civil War was still raging when Abraham Lincoln made the decision to back the Transcontinental Railroad. Lincoln realized the important role the railroad would be in the development of our nation. He endorsed these endeavors even before he gave the Gettysburg Address.

What were Abraham Lincoln's motives for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation? Critics suggest Lincoln's act was a military necessity aimed at ending the war rather than a call for justice. 

A San Francisco Unified School district recently voted to rename Abraham Lincoln High School because of Lincoln's detrimental policy decisions regarding Native and African Americans.  

Author Jonathan W. White, associate professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University and author or editor of 8 books, decided to examine the history. Using actual letters, correspondence and historical events, White attempts to answer the  "Did Black lives matter to Abraham Lincoln?" question.

Here's an excerpt:

"Lincoln also met hundreds of African Americans in Washington during the war years. Some came to the White House at his invitation; others walked through the White House gates uninvited and unannounced. Regardless of how they arrived at his doorstep, the president welcomed these visitors with open arms and an outstretched hand. As Frederick Douglass was proud to say after his first White House meeting in August 1863, Lincoln welcomed him “just as you have seen one gentleman receive another.”

Click here to read the article in its entirety: Black Lives Certainly Mattered to Abraham Lincoln.

Coming Soon: Families: Separation and loss - then and now.

Let me say that again ─ President Biden.
 
It feels so good.  
 
A day or two before Inauguration day, I was so worried about then President-elect Joe Biden's safety I actually wondered if I should email Rachel Maddow. I wanted to ask Ms. Maddow to call Dr. Biden and urge her to encourage her husband to have an indoor ceremony. Roosevelt did that once. Of course, I didn't. I was that worried, though.
 
Having recently read the book and talked about "Lincoln on the Verge" detailing Lincoln's 13-day trip to D.C. from Illinois, I couldn't help but think about the similarities. People wanted to kill Lincoln. The trip was a nightmare for those responsible for his safety. He kept getting out off the train to talk to the people. But, he made it.

​I remember watching President Obama and his family on the customary "walk down the street" to the White House after his inauguration. "Get back in the car," I urged. And, here we were again. Eighty-one million of us voted for Joseph Biden. He is our president. As he, Dr. Biden and members of their family "walked down the street," I silently wished them back in the car.

High Expectations

We all have high expectations of the Biden presidency. We're relieved, yes, but we also expect a lot from his administration. As Jesus said in the film, "Jesus Christ Superstar," ─ "I'm just one man," ─ so Joseph R. Biden is just one man.  (I just had to throw a film reference in here. Cut me a little slack.)
 
President Biden knows better than anyone what needs to be done. He surrounded himself with a superb group of gifted people to help him move the country forward. He is the most qualified man on the face of the earth to step into this presidency. Hands down.
 
Still, he is just one man. We need to remind ourselves of the importance of teamwork, and temper a tendency to expect the President to be a knight in shining armor on a white horse coming to our rescue. We have to work with Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris to repair the damage of the last four years and "build back better." President Biden needs our help. We can't let him down.

With the election of Abraham Lincoln, Nancy Kendall’s world was about to enter one of the most volatile chapters in the history of the American Experience.
 
On the eve of the Civil War, President-elect Lincoln traveled two weeks on the long train trip from Springfield, IL, to Washington D. C. for his inauguration. Newspapers were the only reliable form of mass communication at the time. The citizens of a troubled nation wanted to know their new president on a more personal level than newsprint could offer. As Lincoln wound his way through cities both small and large, he got off the train at each stop to speak directly to the people.
 
Lincoln was in terrible danger as he traveled east whether he took it seriously or not. As he prepared to assume the office of President of the U.S., alarm bells were going off in the minds of those involved in not only the inaugural preparations, but also those in charge of security during the perilous trip to D.C. Provocateurs plotted against the president-elect and planned various, often violent actions to obstruct him along the way. 

Historian Ted Widmer examines this 13 day journey in his book, "Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington."  

​In a World Affairs Council Dallas/Forth Worth interview, Widmer and fellow historian Jeffrey Engel discuss Lincoln's "odyssey to save democracy" as he traveled from Springfield to Washington D.C. 

​The parallels between Lincoln's election and inauguration and that of President-elect Joseph Biden are striking. Biden steps on a stage every bit as fraught with dangers. He assures the citizens of the U.S. that he is not afraid to meet the challenges as our leader, and he cares deeply for "we the people."
 
Next time: Thoughts about President-elect Joe Biden as he faces leading a country  filled with unrest.