Beginning with the argument that the Emancipation Proclamation did not actually free African American slaves, this dissenting view of Lincoln's greatness surveys the president's policies, speeches, and private utterances and concludes that he had little real interest in abolition. Pointing to Lincoln's support for the fugitive slave laws, his friendship with slave-owning senator Henry Clay, and conversations in which he entertained the idea of deporting slaves in order to create an all-white nation, the book, concludes that the president was a racist at heart—and that the tragedies of Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era were the legacy of his shallow moral vision.
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About the Author:
Lerone Bennett Jr. is the executive editor emeritus of Ebony magazine and the author of 10 books, including Before the Mayflower, Great Moments in Black History, Pioneers in Protest, The Shaping of Black America, and What Manner of Man, a biography of Martin Luther King. He lives in Chicago.
Review:
This book must be taken seriously. Bennett gets some things right.... But Bennett gets more wrong than he gets right. -- The New York Times Book Review, James M. McPherson
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherJohnson Publishing Company, Inc.
- Publication date2000
- ISBN 10 0874850851
- ISBN 13 9780874850857
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number3
- Number of pages652
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Rating