Thought-provoking article: "What 'Lincoln' misses and another Civil War film gets right"....

[1StrongBlackMan]

15. My daughter ...

caused quite the stir, when in 4th grade (during Black History Month), the class was asked which President did the most for Black people in America. Being that they had just spent two weeks talking about President Lincoln and his "freeing the slaves", her teacher was certain of what her answer would be ... President Lincoln, of course.

Well, (paraphrasing from what I recall the teacher telling me during the next parent/teacher conference) her answer was LBJ (even though they had not discussed him) because ... even though, she recognized that LBJ had no great love for Black people, he pushed for, and got signed, the Civil Rights Act and he appointed Thurgood Marshall to the SCOTUS.

When the teacher asked, "why not Lincoln?, since he freed the slaves", my daughter responded that President Lincoln had no love for Black people, either; but his signing the EP (for the slaves in the rebel states - but not in the North or the non-seceding border states) without a mechanism for providing them the legal protections contained in the Constitution, he left them out in the cold ... you are not free, if you have no legal protections that others are bound to respect.

When the teacher asked, whether it would have been better to just leave the slaves enslaved? My daughter responded "No, but since he was doing such a radical thing as freeing the slaves, he could have very easily added the language of the 14th amendment to the EP ... those that accepted the EP, would have accepted the protections; those that didn't, wouldn't ... but they were on the losing side of the Civil War."

I was never more proud of BabyGirl 1StrongBlackMan, then in that day. Her teacher added ... "you're raising quite the rebel, there!"