Was Lincoln a White Supremacist?
GATES: In 1939, after the Daughters of the American Revolution denied her
permission to sing at constitution hall, the great opera singer Marian Anderson,
held her concert instead on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, under the
protective gaze of the great emancipator himself.
GATES: And during the great march on Washington in summer of 1963, the
Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Called Lincoln ‘A great and shining beacon
light of hope’.
MLK: Five score years ago a great American in whose symbolic shadow we stand
today…
But at the same time, to the astonishment of many black people, Malcolm X
implored us to tear down our shrines to Lincoln, calling him “just another white
man” making empty promises…
MALCOLM X: Lincoln supposedly fought the civil war to solve the race problem
and the problem is still here.
GATES: In 1968 another black man, the journalist and historian Lerone Bennett,
Jr., in the pages of Ebony magazine, dared to ask the most provocative question
of all…..
BENNETT: The day it was published, it was on the front page of almost all the
country’s...papers in this country. The New York Times, front page. Paris paper,
front page. London paper. You know African-American says that Abraham
Lincoln was a racist and he wanted to deport black people.
GATES: Lincoln had always been a hero to Bennett -- he was father Abraham, the
Great Emancipator.
BENNETT: I grew up in the 1920’s and 30’s, in the worst place in the world for a
black boy. I grew up in the state of Mississippi.
BENNETT: I loved to read. I was reading for my life. And one day I found this
book about Lincoln-Douglas debate. And I sat there and I read a little bit of it.
Abraham Lincoln was sayin’ that, that they didn’t believe they should vote, sit on
juries, hold office. I said, this can’t be true; this is my man, Abraham Lincoln.
GATES: Amazing
BENNETT: Amazing.
BENNETT: So I discovered for everything I’ve heard about Abraham Lincoln,
was a lie.
GATES: Bennett points to Lincoln’s stubborn support for the colonization of
freed slaves as proof of his core belief that the races were not equal.
GATES: The American Colonization Society was founded by white men in 1816
with the ostensible object of promoting emancipation by sending the freedmen to
Africa.
Lincoln supported voluntary colonization as part of his solution to the dilemma
of what to do with slaves set free into a racist society.
In 1858, Lincoln said, “my first impulse would be to free all the slaves and send
them to Liberia—to their own native land. What next? Free them and make them
politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit this.”
BENNETT: The only plan he ever had was gradual emancipation, paying for the
slaves, and deporting them.
GATES: why has it become a mission for you, why is it so important for you to
deconstruct the myth of Abraham Lincoln?
BENNETT: Brother Doctor Skip, you can’t defend Abraham Lincoln, without
defending slavery.
BENNETT: In this period from 1830-1860 one of the greatest generations of
white people every produced in this country. They spoke out; they moved blacks
on the Underground Railroad. They did everything they could do. 1830, 1840,
1850. For 30 years, Abraham Lincoln was silent. Did not lift a hand to help.
BENNETT: I think in Lincoln...Americans see themselves giving freedom to
African-Americans and wiping away all the sins of all those years.
Lerone Bennett’s work has ruffled the feathers of more traditional Lincoln
scholars. While many have lauded his work as a necessary corrective, some have
accused him of picking and choosing facts to make his case.
GATES: But as I left our interview I was reminded that there is no single way to
interpret historical events.
BENNETT: in order to remember the redemptive, progressive Lincoln we have
to forget what he said in the Lincoln-Douglas debates about racial inequality.
Remembering is always about some degree of forgetting. The task of course is not
only to just find that balance, the task is to keep reminding ourselves what is
worth remembering.
GATES: What is worth remembering about the Lincoln story? Is it the tale my
grandparents believed – of a righteous savior who set our people free – or is it the
story Lerone Bennett tells, of a reluctant politician pulled along by events?