Legacies links for February 12, 2024: Lincoln’s Birthday

It’s the second full week of Black History Month and the 215th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. As always, we encourage you to share this post (though a link here does not necessarily mean agreement or endorsement by the Council of Independent Colleges).

A painting of President Abraham Lincoln (seated at left), two members of his cabinet, and Frederick Douglass (standing at right).
“Frederick Douglass appealing to President Lincoln and his cabinet to enlist Negroes,” a mural by William Edouard Scott at the District of Columbia Recorder of Deeds building (c. 1943). source: Library of Congress

Updates from the CIC network:

  • Michaela Zeno, “Elon’s collaboration on Locating Slavery’s Legacies project aimed at education, empowerment,” Today at Elon (February 5, 2024): LINK. CIC member Elon College (Elon, NC) has joined the Locating Slavery’s Legacies database project, a multi-campus initiative under the leadership of Sewanee: The University of the South (a Regional Collaboration Partner in the Legacies network).
  • Jenna Webster, “Exploring the role Galesburg [Illinois] played in the abolitionist movement and Underground Railroad,” WQAD (February 7, 2024): LINK. “On the third floor of [CIC member] Knox College’s Alumni Hall, the Underground Railroad Freedom Center stands as a testament to the college’s and Galesburg’s history and the role both played in the anti-slavery movement.”
  • Parris Baker, “Why study Black history? Because it is American history,” GoErie (February 7, 2024): LINK. A faculty member at CIC member Gannon University (Erie, PA) addresses the history and significance of Black History Month, which “offers a safe space to engage in conversations of our shared histories. Therefore, do not avoid race-related conversations, but embrace them.”

    Two historians on Lincoln and slavery:

    • Allen C. Guelzo, “No Slaves, No Masters: What Democracy Meant to Abraham Lincoln,” Literary Hub (February 8, 2024): LINK. In this excerpt from his latest book, Guelzo explores Lincoln’s understanding of the essential conflict between democracy and slavery — conditions “so unalike that those who want to live in a democracy cannot, ultimately, reconcile that desire with the buying, owning, and keeping of slaves.”
    • “Kellie Carter Jackson Interview: Understanding Abraham Lincoln’s Goal of Unification,” YouTube (February 3, 2024): LINK. In this interview from Life Stories, Jackson discusses many aspects of Abraham Lincoln’s complicated attitudes towards slavery: “Freedom was never [just] about Lincoln. Emancipation and liberation was never about Lincoln — it’s so much bigger than that. … [During] the period of Reconstruction, in which Black people are advocating for themselves and other radical white abolitionists are advocating for their humanity and for their rights, … [this was] way beyond what Lincoln had ever imagined.”

    Other links:

    • Char Adams, “After a spate of education bans, Florida churches are taking Black history into their own hands,” NBCBLK (February 8, 2024): LINK. “Nearly 300 churches in Florida are offering Black history lessons for their communities to counter efforts to bar and restrict race-conscious lessons in schools across the state.”
    • Ryan Raul Bañagale, “George Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ is a story of jazz, race and the fraught notion of America’s melting pot,” The Conversation (February 7, 2024): LINK. The first public performance of Gershwin’s popular composition was a 100 years ago today. The author, a musicologist at CIC member Colorado College, discusses the history and evolving meaning of a beloved work that some view as “a whitewashed version of Harlem’s vibrant Black music scene.”