Views On African Americans
Known as the Great Emancipator, Lincoln was a complicated figure who wrestled with his own views on race. Lincoln's primary audience were white voters. Lincoln's views on slavery, race equality, and African American colonization are often intermixed. During the 1858 debates with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln expressed his contemporary view that he believed whites were superior to blacks. Lincoln stated he was against miscegenation and blacks to serve as jurors. While President, as the American Civil War progressed, Lincoln advocated or implemented anti-racist policies including the Emancipation Proclamation and limited suffrage for African Americans. Former slave and leading abolitionist, Frederick Douglass once observed of Lincoln: "In his company, I was never reminded of my humble origin, or of my unpopular color". Douglass praised Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation; however, he stated that Lincoln "was preeminently the white man’s President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men." Before his presidency, Lincoln lived in a middle-class, racially mixed neighborhood of Springfield; one of his long-time neighbors, Jameson Jenkins (who may have been born a slave), had come from North Carolina and was implicated in the 1850s as a conductor on the underground railroad. In 1861, Lincoln called on Jenkins to give him a ride to the train depot, where Lincoln delivered his farewell address before leaving Springfield for the last time. Generations through changing times have interpreted independently Lincoln's views on African Americans.
Read more about this topic: Abraham Lincoln And Slavery
Famous quotes containing the words african americans, views on, views, african and/or americans:
“The confirmation of Clarence Thomas, one of the most conservative voices to be added to the [Supreme] Court in recent memory, carries a sobering message for the African- American community.... As he begins to make his mark upon the lives of African Americans, we must acknowledge that his successful nomination is due in no small measure to the support he received from black Americans.”
—Kimberly Crenshaw (b. 1959)
“Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don’t seem to see this.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“It is even more grim and wild than you had anticipated, a damp and intricate wilderness, in the spring everywhere wet and miry. The aspect of the country, indeed, is universally stern and savage, excepting the distant views of the forest from hills, and the lake prospects, which are mild and civilizing in a degree.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A tanned skin is something more than respectable, and perhaps olive is a fitter color than white for a man,—a denizen of the woods. “The pale white man!” I do not wonder that the African pitied him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)