The Black Man's President: Abraham Lincoln, African Americans, & the Pursuit of Racial Equality

The Black Man's President: Abraham Lincoln, African Americans, & the Pursuit of Racial Equality by Michael Burlingame

In a little-noted eulogy delivered shortly after Lincoln's assassination, Frederick Douglass called the martyred president "emphatically the black man's president," the "first to show any respect for their rights as men." To justify that description, Douglass pointed not just to Lincoln's official acts and utterances, like the Emancipation Proclamation or the Second Inaugural Address, but also to the president's own personal experiences with Black people. Referring to one of his White House visits, Douglass said: "In daring to invite a Negro to an audience at the White House, Mr. Lincoln was saying to the country: I am President of the black people as well as the white, and I mean to respect their rights and feelings as men and as citizens."

But Lincoln's description as "emphatically the black man's president" rests on more than his relationship with Douglass or on his official words and deeds. Lincoln interacted with many other African Americans during his presidency. His unfailing cordiality to them, his willingness to meet with them in the White House, to honor their requests, to invite them to consult on public policy, to treat them with respect, to invite them to attend receptions, to sing and pray with them in their neighborhoods -- all those manifestations of an egalitarian spirit fully justified the tributes paid to him by Frederick Douglass and other Black Americans.

As Sojourner Truth said: "I never was treated by anyone with more kindness and cordiality than were shown to me by that great and good man, Abraham Lincoln."

Pegasus Books, Hardcover, 1st Edition, 1st Printing, 2021