Though not blind to Abraham Lincoln's imperfections, Black Americans long ago laid a heartfelt claim to his legacy. At the same time, they have consciously reshaped the sixteenth president's image for their own social and political ends. Frederick Hord and Matthew D. Norman's anthology explores the complex nature of views on Lincoln through the writings and thought of Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary McLeod Bethune, Thurgood Marshall, Malcolm X, Gwendolyn Brooks, Barbara Jeanne Fields, Barack Obama, and dozens of others. The selections move from speeches to letters to book excerpts, mapping the changing contours of the bond--emotional and intellectual--between Lincoln and Black Americans over the span of one hundred and fifty years. A comprehensive and valuable reader, Knowing Him by Heart examines Lincoln's still-evolving place in Black American thought.
Frederick Hord is a professor of Black studies and director of the Department of African Studies at Knox College. He is the editor of I Am Because We Are: A Black Philosophy Reader and Reconstructing Memory: Black Literary Criticism. Matthew D. Norman is an associate professor of history at the University of Cincinnati, Blue Ash College.
Introduction Frederick Douglass, Emancipation Day Address at Poughkeepsie, New York, August 2, 1858 Frederick Douglass, "The Chicago Nominations," June, 1860 H. Ford Douglas, Address at Framingham, Massachusetts, July 4, 1860 Frederick Douglass, "The Inaugural Address," April, 1861 "President Lincoln's Inaugural," Editorial in the Weekly Anglo-African, New York, March 16, 1861 "The Fatal Step Backward," Editorial in the Anglo-African, September 21, 1861 Jabez P. Campbell, "The President and the Colored People," October 1, 1861, Trenton, New Jersey Robert Hamilton, "The President's Message," Editorial in the Anglo-African, December 7, 1861 Robert Hamilton, "The Hanging of Gordon for Man Stealing," Editorial in the Anglo-African, March 1, 1862 Henry McNeal Turner on Lincoln's Proposal for Compensated Emancipation, March 16, 1862 "The Emancipation Message," Editorial in the Weekly Anglo-African, New York, March 22, 1862 Daniel Alexander Payne, Account of Meeting with Abraham Lincoln, April 1862 Henry Highland Garnet on Emancipation in Washington, DC, May 12, 1862 Philip A. Bell, Editorial on Lincoln's Revocation of Gen. Hunter's Emancipation Decree in the Pacific Appeal, San Francisco, California, June 14, 1862 Edward M. Thomas to Abraham Lincoln, Washington, DC, August 16, 1862 Frederick Douglass, "The President and His Speeches," September, 1862 Resolutions of Newtown, New York Meeting on Lincoln's Colonization Proposal, August 20, 1862 Alfred P. Smith, Letter to President Lincoln in Response to Colonization Proposal, Saddle River, New Jersey, September 5, 1862 Frances Ellen Watkins Harper on Lincoln's Colonization Proposal, September 27, 1862 Philip A. Bell, Editorial on the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in the Pacific Appeal, San Francisco, California, September 27, 1862 Frederick Douglass, "Emancipation Proclaimed," October, 1862 George B. Vashon, Open Letter to President Lincoln on Colonization, October, 1862 Henry McNeal Turner, Response to Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, September 26, 1862 Thomas Strother on Lincoln's Colonization Proposal, October 4, 1862 Ezra R. Johnson, "The Liberty Bells are Ringing," October 4, 1862 C. P. S., "The President on Emancipation," October 4, 1862 Free Black People of Washington, DC, Letter to President Lincoln on Colonization, November 2, 1862 Frederick Douglass, "January First 1863" Emancipation Celebration at Beaufort, South Carolina, January 1, 1863 Philip A. Bell, "The Year of Jubilee Has Come!" January 3, 1863 Robert Hamilton, "The Great Event," Anglo-African, January 3, 1863 Emancipation Celebration at Trenton, New Jersey, January 1, 1863 James Smith, Report on Emancipation Celebration at Elmira, New York, January 5, 1863 Jeremiah B. Sanderson, Address at Emancipation Jubilee in San Francisco, January 14, 1863 Osborne P. Anderson, Remarks on the Emancipation Celebration in Chicago, January 1, 1863 H. Ford Douglas to Frederick Douglass, Colliersville, Tennessee, Jan. 8, 1863 Thomas Morris Chester, Speech at Cooper Institute, New York, New York, January 20, 1863 James H. Hudson, Letter to the Editor of the Pacific Appeal, February 25, 1863 Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, "The President's Proclamation," March 7, 1863 John Proctor to Abraham Lincoln, Beaufort, South Carolina, April 18, 1863 William Slade to Abraham Lincoln, Washington, DC April 28, 1863 Robert Purvis, Address to the American Anti-Slavery Society, New York, May 12, 1863 Hannah Johnson to Abraham Lincoln, Buffalo, New York, July 31, 1863 Frederick Douglass, "The Commander-in-Chief and His Black Soldiers," August, 1863 Leonard A. Grimes to Abraham Lincoln, Washington, DC, August 21, 1863 Jeremiah Asher to Abraham Lincoln, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 7, 1863 Robert Hamilton, Editorial on Lincoln's Letter to James C. Conkling in the Anglo-African, New York, September 12, 1863 Robert Hamilton, Editorial Endorsing Lincoln for a Second Term as President in the Anglo-African, New York, October 24, 1863 African Civilization Society, Address to Abraham Lincoln, Washington, DC, November 5, 1863 Frederick Douglass, Address to the American Anti-Slavery Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 4, 1863 Philip A. Bell, Editorial on President Lincoln's Annual Message in the Pacific Appeal, San Francisco, California, December 12, 1863 William Florville to Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois, December 27, 1863 Thomas R. Street, Emancipation Day Address, Virginia City, Nevada Territory, January 1, 1864 Philip A. Bell, Editorial Endorsing Lincoln for a Second Term in Office in the Pacific Appeal, San Francisco, California, January 9, 1864 John H. Morgan et al. to Abraham Lincoln, Pensacola, Florida, January 16, 1864 Mattild Burr to Abraham Lincoln, January 18, 1864 Amos G. Beman on the First Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, January 23, 1864 Richard H. Cain to Abraham Lincoln, Washington, DC, January 27, 1864 Jean Baptiste Roudanez and Arnold Bertonneau, Memorial to Abraham Lincoln, March 10, 1864 Petition of North Carolina Freedmen to Abraham Lincoln, April or May, 1864 Don Carlos Rutter to Abraham Lincoln, St. Helena Island, South Carolina, May 29, 1864 George E. Stephens, Letter to the Editor of the Anglo-African, May 26, 1864 James W. C. Pennington, Letter to the Editor of the Anglo-African, New York, June 9, 1864 "Africano," Letter to the Editor of the Anglo-African, Point Lookout, Maryland, July 18, 1864 Annie Davis to Abraham Lincoln, Belair, Maryland, August 25, 1864 Frederick Douglass to Abraham Lincoln, Rochester, New York, August 29, 1864 Robert Hamilton, Editorial on the Presidential Election in the Anglo-African, New York, September 24, 1864 "Africano," Letter to Editor of Anglo-African, Point Lookout, Maryland, September 2, 1864 S. W. Chase, Remarks to Abraham Lincoln upon Presenting a Bible, September 7, 1864 Sojourner Truth, Account of Meeting with Abraham Lincoln, October 29, 1864 Robert Hamilton Gives Thanks for Lincoln's Re-election, November 19, 1864 Martin Delany, Account of Meeting with Abraham Lincoln, February 8, 1865 George Washington to Abraham Lincoln, Hilton Head, South Carolina, March 19, 1865 Thomas Morris Chester, Report on Lincoln's Visit to Richmond, Virginia, April 4, 1865 Isaac J. Hill, Account of Lincoln's Visit to Richmond, April 4, 1865 Alexander H. Newton, Account of Lincoln's Visit to Richmond, April 4, 1865 Jacob Thomas, Sermon Preached in Memory of Abraham Lincoln at AME Zion Church, Troy, New York, April 16, 1865 Resolutions Passed on Lincoln's Assassination in Middletown, Connecticut, April 20, 1865 Martin Delany, Proposal for a Monument to Abraham Lincoln, April 20, 1865 Robert Hamilton, "Thy Will Be Done" April 22, 1865 James W. C. Pennington on Lincoln's Funeral Procession through New York City, April 27, 1865 Angeline R. Demby, Poem in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, April 29, 1865 Reaction to Lincoln's Assassination in Baltimore, April, 1865 Henry O. Wagoner, Report on Lincoln's Funeral Procession in Chicago, May 2, 1865 George W. Le Vere, Eulogy of Abraham Lincoln, New Orleans, Louisiana, May 22, 1865 Frederick Douglass, Speech at Cooper Institute, New York, June 1, 1865 Frederick Douglass, Draft of A Speech on Lincoln, circa December, 1865 Address of the Illinois Convention of Colored Men to the American People, Galesburg, Illinois, October 16-18, 1866 Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 1868 Paul Trevigne, Editorial on Emancipation Day in the New Orleans Tribune, New Orleans, Louisiana, January 1, 1869 Thomas N. C. Liverpool, Address on Lincoln's Birthday, Cincinnati, Ohio, Feb. 12, 1873 Frederick Douglass, Address at Dedication of the Freedmen's Monument, Washington, DC, April 14, 1876 H. Cordelia Ray, "Lincoln," Poem written for Dedication of the Freedmen's Monument, Washington, DC, April 14, 1876 George Washington Williams, A History of the Negro Race in America, 1882 Emmanuel K. Love, Emancipation Day Address at Savannah, Georgia, January 2, 1888 William S. Scarborough>, Remarks at Ohio Republican League Club Lincoln Banquet, Columbus, Ohio, February 13, 1888 John Mercer Langston, Memorial Day Address at Washington, DC, May 30, 1891 Peter H. Clark on Lincoln and Emancipation, May 18, 1892 Frederick Douglass, Address at Lincoln Birthday Celebration, Brooklyn, New York, February 13, 1893 E. W. S. Hammond, "Lincoln on the Negro," May 11, 1893 Charles W. Anderson, Address on Emancipation Proclamation, Chicago, Illinois, February 12, 1895 Booker T. Washington, Address at the Union League Club, Brooklyn, New York, February 12, 1896 Harriet Tubman, Statement on Abraham Lincoln, July, 1896 Julius F. Taylor, Critique of Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, August 7, 1897 Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Emancipation Day Address at Decatur, Illinois, September 22, 1899 Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Lincoln," 1899 Elizabeth Thomas, Reminiscence of Abraham Lincoln, 1900 Archibald H. Grimke, "Abraham Lincoln," March, 1900 Elizabeth Keckly on Lincoln, 1901 "The Negro's Natal Day," February, 1904 William A. Sinclair, The Aftermath of Slavery: A Study of the Condition and Environment of the American Negro, 1905 Jesse Max Barber, "Abraham Lincoln and the Negro," February, 1905 Mary Church Terrell, Address on Abraham Lincoln, New York, February 13, 1905 T. Thomas Fortune, Address on Lincoln, Montclair, New Jersey, February 16, 1906 Reverdy C. Ransom, Address on Abraham Lincoln, circa 1907 W. E. B. Du Bois, Address Delivered at Hull House, Chicago, Illinois, February 12, 1907 William Monroe Trotter, "Proposed Mass. Lincoln Centennial," Editorial in the Guardian on Celebration of Lincoln's Birthday, Boston, Massachusetts, January 18, 1908 Maude K. Griffin, "Lincoln--Man of Many Sides," April, 1908 Hightower T. Kealing, "Lincoln's Birthday--The Great American Day," January, 1909 Silas X. Floyd, Address at Emancipation Day Celebration in Augusta, Georgia, January 1, 1909 George L. Knox, "Celebrating in Memory of Lincoln," January 2, 1909 Selections from The American Missionary, Special Issue on Lincoln, February, 1909: Thomas S. Inborden, George W. Henderson, William Pickens, Kelly Miller, Etta M. T. Cottin, Archibald H. Grimke, and John M. Gandy Fred R. Moore, "Lincoln and the Negro," February, 1909 Sylvanie F. Williams, "Abraham Lincoln and Emancipation," February, 1909 Harry C. Smith, "Lincoln in a True Light," February 6, 1909 James H. Magee, Address at Lincoln Centennial Commemoration, Springfield, Illinois, February 12, 1909 Booker T. Washington, Address at Republican Club of New York, New York, February 12, 1909 James L. Curtis, Address on Centennial of Lincoln's Birth, February 12, 1909 John W. E. Bowen Sr., Address at Lincoln Centennial Commemoration, Chicago, Illinois, February 12, 1909 Cora J. Ball, "On Lincoln's Centennial," February 13, 1909 Fred R. Moore, "Lincoln Day And The White Folks," March, 1909 Thomas Nelson Baker, "Speech of Lincoln," March-April, 1909 Josephine Silone Yates, "Lincoln the Emancipator," April, 1910 Henry McNeal Turner, "Reminiscences of the Proclamation of Emancipation," January, 1913 James Weldon Johnson, "Father, Father Abraham," February, 1913 William H. Lewis, Speech before the Massachusetts General Assembly, February 12, 1913 W. E. B. Du Bois, Address to Commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and Lincoln's Birthday, Chicago, Illinois, February 12, 1913 Booker T. Washington, Address at Rochester, New York, February 12, 1913 John H. Murphy Sr., "A Government for the People," July 5, 1913 Robert R. Wright Sr., Address at the Emancipation Proclamation Exposition, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 14, 1913 Theophile T. Allain, Address to Commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Decatur, Illinois, September 23, 1913 Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, "Abraham Lincoln," 1914 Grand Household of Ruth, Resolution on Equal Suffrage, August, 1915 Richard W. Gadsden, Address on Lincoln's Birthday, Savannah, Georgia, February 12, 1918 Edward A. Johnson, Speech on Lincoln's Birthday in the New York State Assembly, Albany, New York, February 12, 1918 Alice Dunbar-Nelson, "Lincoln and Douglass," 1920 Hubert H. Harrison, "Lincoln and Liberty--Fact Versus Fiction," March, 1921 Carter G. Woodson, The Negro in Our History, 1922 Robert R. Moton, Draft for an Address at the Dedication of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC, May, 1922 Georgia Douglas Johnson, "To Abraham Lincoln," 1922 W. E. B. Du Bois, Editorials on Abraham Lincoln in The Crisis, July, 1922 and September, 1922 National Association of Colored Women, Speeches and a Resolution Commemorating Abraham Lincoln, 1923-1924 Langston Hughes, "Lincoln Monument: Washington," March, 1927 Charles Chesnutt, Address to the Harlan Club, Cleveland, Ohio, February 14, 1928 Walter White, "If Lincoln Were Here," Radio Address on Lincoln's Birthday, February 12, 1929 Lamar Perkins, Address in the New York State Assembly, Albany, New York, February 12, 1930 Samuel A. Haynes, Editorial in the Philadelphia Tribune on Lincoln and Emancipation Day, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 7, 1932 William E. Lilly, Set My People Free: A Negro's Life of Lincoln, 1932 Robert L. Vann, "The Patriot and the Partisan," Speech Delivered in Cleveland, Ohio September 11, 1932 Carter G. Woodson, "Abolitionists Worried Lincoln," November 24, 1932 William Lloyd Imes, "A Negro's Tribute to Lincoln," Radio Address on Lincoln's Birthday, February 12, 1935, Station WMCA, New York, February 12, 1935 Eugene Gordon, Editorial on Lincoln, February, 1935 Arthur W. Mitchell, Address in the US House of Representatives, June 1, 1936 Grace Evans, Remarks at Emancipation Day Celebration, Connersville, Indiana, September 22, 1936 Harry C. Smith, Editorial in the Cleveland Gazette, Cleveland, Ohio, February 20, 1937 Selections from WPA Slave Narratives, 1936-38 Aaron H. Payne, Address at Lincoln Day Dinner, New York, February 12, 1940 Claude McKay, "Lincoln--Apostle of a New America," February 13, 1943 March on Washington Movement, Press Release Regarding the Celebration of Lincoln's Birthday, February 14, 1943 Roscoe Conkling Simmons, Address to a Joint Session of the Illinois General Assembly, February 13, 1944 Joel A. Rogers, "Lincoln Wanted to Deport Negroes and Opposed Equal Rights," February 26, 1944 Mary McLeod Bethune, Address on Lincoln's Birthday, Washington, DC, February 12, 1945 John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 1947 Ella Baker, Emancipation Day Address, Atlanta, Georgia, January 1, 1947 Luther Porter Jackson, "The Views of Abraham Lincoln on Race Question," February 12, 1948 Willard Townsend, "Lincoln Did Not Envision 1952 in His Speech at Gettysburg," January 19, 1952 Ralph J. Bunche, Address at the Lincoln Association of Jersey City, New Jersey, February 12, 1954 Mary McLeod Bethune, Editorial on Lincoln's Birthday in the Chicago Defender, Chicago. Illinois, February 12, 1955 Roy Wilkins, Radio Address to Commemorate Lincoln's Birthday, February 11 or 12, 1958 Mordecai W. Johnson, Address on Abraham Lincoln Before the Michigan Legislature, Lansing, Michigan, February 12, 1959 Carl J. Murphy , "Freedom Is Never A Gift," Editorial in the BaltimoreAfro-American, Baltimore, Maryland, January 23, 1960 Jackie Robinson, "Kennedy Not Another Lincoln," June 9, 1962 Martin Luther King Jr., Draft of an Address at the Park Sheraton Hotel, New York, New York, September 12, 1962 Thurgood Marshall, Remarks on Commemoration of the Centennial of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC, September 22, 1962 Edith Sampson, Address on Emancipation Proclamation, circa 1962-1963 Benjamin Quarles, Lincoln and the Negro, 1962 John Hope Franklin, The Emancipation Proclamation, 1963 St. Clair Drake, The Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Lectures, Chicago, Illinois, January-February, 1963 Charles H. Wesley, Remarks at Opening of the Emancipation Proclamation Exhibit at the National Archives, Washington, DC, January 4, 1963 Daisy Bates, "After 100 Years--Where Do We Stand?" An Address on the Emancipation Proclamation, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, January 6, 1963 Malcolm X, Speech at the University of California, October 11, 1963 Gwendolyn Brooks, "In the Time of Detachment, in the Time of Cold, 1965" John Hope Franklin, "Abraham Lincoln and Civil Rights," an Address at Gettysburg National Cemetery, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1965 Julius Lester, Look Out Whitey, Black Power's Gon' Get Your Mama, 1968 Lerone Bennett Jr., "Was Abe Lincoln a White Supremacist?" February, 1968 Henry Lee Moon, "Abraham Lincoln: A Man to Remember and Honor," February, 1968 John H. Sengstacke, "A New Lincoln," Editorial in the Chicago Daily Defender, Chicago, February 12, 1968 Norman E. W. Hodges, Breaking the Chains of Bondage, 1972 Arvarh Strickland, Remarks at the Abraham Lincoln Symposium, Springfield, Illinois, February 12, 1980 Mary Frances Berry, "Lincoln & Civil Rights for Blacks," Address at the Abraham Lincoln Association Banquet, Springfield, Illinois, February 12, 1980 Vincent Harding, There Is a River, 1981 Clarence Thomas on Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence, 1987 Barbara Jeanne Fields, "Who Freed the Slaves?" 1990 Lerone Bennett Jr., Forced into Glory, 2000 Henry Louis Gates Jr., Lincoln on Race and Slavery, 2009 Barack Obama, "What I See in Lincoln's Eyes," July 4, 2005 Barack Obama, Remarks at the Abraham Lincoln Association Banquet, Springfield, Illinois, February 12, 2009 Index
"This valuable addition to the growing literature on Lincoln and race features a generous sampling of Civil-War-era African American opinion (including two little known, highly significant speeches by Frederick Douglass) and abundant later commentary, both positive and negative, from an impressively wide variety of sources, ranging from historians and journalists to poets and statesmen." --Michael Burlingame, author of The Black Man's President: Abraham Lincoln, African Americans, and the Pursuit of Racial Equality "No voice has been more important in speaking about Abraham Lincoln than the African American one. Yet, that voice has been often buried in obscure newspapers and magazines and long-forgotten collections of papers. It has been fervent in its admiration, and it has been strident in its resentment at condescension. The remarkable achievement of Frederick Hord and Matthew Norman is to bring these varied voices together in one place, offering an unprecedented resource for understanding the fraught relationship of a national image of emancipation with a people longing for redemption. 'I know Abraham Lincoln,' declared one of these voices. Thanks to Hord and Norman, we can all 'know Lincoln' in an entirely new and multi-voiced way."--Allen C. Guelzo, author of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America
