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Black Americans in Mourning: Reactions to the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln - Softcover

Hudson, Leonne M.

 
9780809339549: Black Americans in Mourning: Reactions to the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0809339544 ISBN 13: 9780809339549
Verlag: Southern Illinois University Press, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

Centering Black grief in the aftermath of Lincoln’s assassination

On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth carried out the first presidential assassination in United States history.?The euphoria resulting from General Lee’s surrender evaporated at the news of Abraham Lincoln’s murder. The nation—excepting many white Southerners—found itself consumed with grief, and no group mourned Lincoln more deeply than people of color. African Americans did not speak with a monolithic voice on social or political issues, but even Lincoln’s Black contemporaries who may not have approved of him while he was alive mourned his death, understanding its implications for their future.

Beginning with the assassination itself and chronicling Lincoln’s three-week-long national funeral, historian Leonne M. Hudson captures the profound sadness of Black Americans as they mourned the crafter of the Emancipation Proclamation and the man they thought of as their earthly Moses, father, friend, and benefactor. Hudson continues the narrative by detailing the postwar efforts of African Americans to gain citizenship and voting rights.

Black Americans in Mourning includes the tributes of prominent figures such as Frederick Douglass, Martin R. Delany, and Elizabeth Keckley, who raised their voices to honor Lincoln, as well as formal expressions of grief by institutions and organizations such as the United States Colored Troops. In a triumph of research, Hudson also features the voices of lesser-known Black people who mourned Lincoln across the country, showing that the outpouring of individual and collective grief helped set the stage for his enduring glorification.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Leonne M. Hudson, associate professor emeritus at Kent State University, is the author of The Odyssey of a Southerner: The Life and Times of Gustavus Woodson Smith, the editor of Company “A” Corps of Engineers, U.S.A., 1846-1848, in the Mexican War, and the coeditor of Democracy and the American Civil War: Race and African Americans in the Nineteenth Century.

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Introduction

An illustration of the emotional outpouring of Blacks for Abraham Lincoln can be found in the historical record of Mattie J. Jackson, which includes her reaction to his assassination. Jackson who was born in bondage in St. Louis in the 1840s gained her freedom during the Civil War by escaping via the Underground Railroad. The Indianapolis resident conveyed the sentiments of innumerable Black Americans when she rhapsodized: “The death of the President was like an electric shock to my soul. I could not feel convinced of his death until I gazed upon his remains and heard the last roll of the muffled drum and the farewell boom of the cannon. I was convinced that though we were left to the tender mercies of God, we were without a leader.” Most assuredly, African Americans had accepted Lincoln as their president.

As the hostilities came to an end, John Wilkes Booth’s outrage over the war’s resolution led him to hatch a plot along with his conspirators to assassinate President Lincoln and other high-ranking officials of his administration. He accomplished his part of the scheme with astonishing precision. At 10:30 p.m. on April 14, 1865, Booth carried out the first presidential assassination in the nation’s history. The euphoria resulting from Union victories and the surrender of General Robert E. Lee evaporated with news of Lincoln’s murder. What started out as a night of entertainment for the Lincolns turned into a night of unbelievable horror. Nine hours after being shot in Ford’s Theatre, Lincoln joined the hundreds of thousands of soldiers in death who had gone before him. The influential Black newspaper the Christian Recorder informed its readers that “the nation mourns the loss of her Chief Magistrate, and the hope of our people is again stricken down. Many and heartfelt were the exclamations of sorrow uttered by our people at the loss of so good and great a man.” On many occasions, the content of Black mourners’ reactions referenced the fact that Lincoln’s death was a private as well as a national loss. By combining individual and national grief, the responders embraced a sense of patriotism.

In general, Lincoln’s mourners adhered to the nineteenth-century conventions of bereavement. They embraced the customs of draping their homes with black cloth, gathering in places of worship, and talking about the assassination with others. By engaging in these activities, they were better able to shoulder the awful event. There was also another important aspect to Americans following the rituals of bereavement. By doing so, they “were building momentum” for the ceremonies that would take place across the country, the national funeral for the president in Washington, and the processions along the train route to Springfield. Americans with limited financial resources observed stripped down mourning traditions. This, however, did not mean that poor people were less affected by the crime. Certainly, this was not the case for people of color. For them, in both the “North and South alike,” the death of Lincoln “was shattering.” The most common emblem of mourning were the tears of men, women, and children. Weeping was one form of grieving that required no expense.

From coast-to-coast in cities, towns, villages, and hamlets Americans mourned the passing of the “Sage of Springfield.” According to one scholar, “the immediate reaction to Lincoln’s death among northerners and African Americans everywhere was grief, pure and simple.” People of color in Washington did not have a monopoly on mourning because of their proximity to the scene of the crime. Washington, however, was the epicenter of mourning for people of African descent. The District of Columbia was the only place where two public viewings occurred. Blacks there also had adopted Lincoln as their neighbor. For them, the death of a beloved member of the community was stunning. As word of the assassination coursed through the country to Blacks in faraway places, their grief was not diminished by distance. Reverend Stephen W. Rogers, editor of the Black Republican an African American newspaper in New Orleans offered a tribute in memory of the deceased president; telling his readers that Lincoln “has fallen by the same spirit that has so long oppressed and destroyed us.” He concluded that “the great and glorious” man had “paid the penalty of Apostleship.” The Black devotees of Abraham Lincoln showered him with adulation. Yet, he did not personally know more than a handful of African Americans during his life. For many years after the war, it was not unusual for Black Americans to show their admiration for Lincoln by displaying a photograph of him in their homes. Obviously, the elderly Civil War veteran James Brown of Illinois valued his portrait of the president.

Lincoln welcomed African Americans to his home on Pennsylvania Avenue against the backdrop of the separation of the races. It was the president who presided over the integration of the White House dating back to the spring of 1862. From then to the end of his presidency, Lincoln treated Black men and women who visited him on an equal basis with whites. Lincoln’s interaction with people of color in the presidential office was an important moment in the history of race relations in the nation. Many whites including the Democratic press found it appalling that he would invite Black people to the Executive Mansion.

Blacks identified with Lincoln because of his honesty and lack of pretention. In Lincoln they saw a man “who rose to become one of the world’s greatest leaders and yet who never lost his down-to-earth approach to life, nor his interest in the lives of ordinary Americans.” The single most important reason, however, why African Americans identified with the sixteenth president had do to with his role in their freedom. Lincoln on many occasions let it be known that he was against slavery. In August 1863, Lincoln sent a long letter to his friend James C. Conkling in Springfield, defending his controversial emancipation policy and the use of Black troops in the United States Army. Many of Lincoln’s fellow Americans believed that he had exceeded his presidential authority with the document of freedom. Although the letter was addressed to Conkling, it was written for him to read at a pro-Union rally on September 3, 1863. The letter also gave the president an opportunity to appeal to anti-black northerners. The president told Conkling that he “certainly wish that all men could be free.”

There was no disputing the fact that the president’s death “transfixed Negroes with sorrow” and “burdened every black with a personal sense of loss.” An examination of the voluminous expressions of condolence from African Americans reveals that they routinely used the adjectives “great and good” when memorializing Lincoln. They could point to several gains made during Lincoln’s presidency regarding their race. These included, emancipation, the enlistment of Black men into the Union army, diplomatic recognition of two Black countries, and congressional approval of the Thirteenth Amendment. The ratification of the Amendment in December 1865 guaranteed that emancipation would not be overturned by future presidents. These advancements did much to cement Lincoln’s exalted reputation in the minds of African Americans for years to come. Frederick Douglass, however, was not totally satisfied with the historic ratification. He maintained that if Black men did not possess the same rights as white men “slavery is not abolished.”

A tangible response to the assassination of...

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Verlag
Southern Illinois University Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0809339544
ISBN 13 
9780809339549
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
186
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Mare Nostrum Group B.V.
gpsr@mare-nostrum.co.uk

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Breda
4831 GR
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