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| February is Black History Month |
(IRN)-Black History month starts next Tuesday, but one University of Chicago professor says Abraham Lincoln's relationship with race is a complicated one.
Charles Branham who teaches African-American history, asks: "Does Abraham Lincoln deserve all of the credit he receives for freedom and equality in the United States?"
"Well I don't think he should get all the credit, no," said Branham, who will be making a presentation on the subject in Springfield in mid-February. "But I think that Lincoln deserves a great deal of the credit. After all, it was Lincoln who issued the emancipation proclamation."
"I think that we're increasingly coming to appreciate the role that African Americans themselves played especially…the role of pressing the federal government to address the issue of emancipation."
African Americans in the 19th century saw Lincoln as "Father Abraham who ended slavery," says Branham. He says those views shifted later.
"That perception becomes far more complicated in the 20th century. Lincoln is both a part of African American agency and African Americans become increasingly suspicious of the role that whites might play in their own liberation."
Branham says the Lincoln name is ingratiated in African American culture.
"I think that Lincoln contains multitudes," said Branham. "Lincoln is like a Walt Whitman character. He embodies that which is best in America and he also embodies American contradictions."
Branham speaks February 15 at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum.
(Source: Illinois Radio Network) |
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| 01 26 11 by Newsroom |
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