Several years ago, my wife and I attended a lecture in the Lansing, Kansas, Public Library by Lerone Bennett, Jr., former Senior Editor at "Ebony " Magazine. He is the acclaimed author of many books, most prominently BEFORE THE MAYFLOWER, which I had read at age 16, shortly after its first publication . We had gone to Kansas, however , to hear him lecture on Abraham Lincoln, about whom he had written in another book, FORCED INTO GLORY, which he personally autographed for me.
Years earlier he had written a scathing article in "Ebony " that rhetorically asked "Was Abraham Lincoln A White Supremacist?"
Lincoln is iconic among blacks, for his Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, which enabled the enlisting of black soldiers in the Union Army as a "military measure" and which "freed" the slaves then in the Confederate States of America's environs, but not in border states like Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware .
Yesterday, while reading A GRAND ARMY OF BLACK MEN : LETTERS FROM AFRICAN AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN THE UNION ARMY 1861-1865, edited by Edwin S. Redkey, I read a letter that was written by Dr. Martin R. Delany, a physician and Major in the Union Army, 104th USCI, Charleston, South Carolina, after Lincoln's assassination. It was dated April 20, 1865, and was published on May 20, 1865, in the "Christian Recorder," a widely circulated newspaper that was published by the African Methodist Episcopal Church. After reading it, I recalled Lerone Bennett's book on Lincoln, which I have not yet completed reading. A search of his index did not disclose Delany 's name, notwithstanding his rarity as a black Major in the Union Army, an explorer in Nigeria, where he sought a Homeland for black emigrationists; his notoriety as an author of historical occurrences and events, his scientific studies; his tenure as a co-editor of one of Frederick Douglass' newspapers and his writing first novel by a black American. Delany is not easily ignored. Such a man of his stature is only purposely ignored!
Dr. Delany wrote:
"A calamity such as the world has never before witnessed--a calamity, the most heart-rending, caused by the perpetration of a deed at the hands of a wretch, the most infamous and atrocious--a calamity as humiliating to America as it is infamous and atrocious--has suddenly brought our country to mourning by the untimely death of the humane, the benevolent, the philanthropic, the generous, the beloved, the able, the wise, the great, and good man, the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, the Just. In his fall, a mighty chieftain and statesman has passed away. God, in his inscrutable providence, has suffered this, and we bow with meek and humble resignation to his Divine will, because He does all things well. God's will be done!"
P. 222
Sunday, May 22, 2016
A GRAND ARMY OF BLACK MEN, excerpt
Several years ago, my wife and I attended a lecture in the Lansing, Kansas, Public Library by Lerone Bennett, Jr., former Senior Editor at "Ebony " Magazine. He is the acclaimed author of many books, most prominently BEFORE THE MAYFLOWER, which I had read at age 16, shortly after its first publication . We had gone to Kansas, however , to hear him lecture on Abraham Lincoln, about whom he had written in another book, FORCED INTO GLORY, which he personally autographed for me.
Years earlier he had written a scathing article in "Ebony " that rhetorically asked "Was Abraham Lincoln A White Supremacist?"
Lincoln is iconic among blacks, for his Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, which enabled the enlisting of black soldiers in the Union Army as a "military measure" and which "freed" the slaves then in the Confederate States of America's environs, but not in border states like Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware .
Yesterday, while reading A GRAND ARMY OF BLACK MEN : LETTERS FROM AFRICAN AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN THE UNION ARMY 1861-1865, edited by Edwin S. Redkey, I read a letter that was written by Dr. Martin R. Delany, a physician and Major in the Union Army, 104th USCI, Charleston, South Carolina, after Lincoln's assassination. It was dated April 20, 1865, and was published on May 20, 1865, in the "Christian Recorder," a widely circulated newspaper that was published by the African Methodist Episcopal Church. After reading it, I recalled Lerone Bennett's book on Lincoln, which I have not yet completed reading. A search of his index did not disclose Delany 's name, notwithstanding his rarity as a black Major in the Union Army, an explorer in Nigeria, where he sought a Homeland for black emigrationists; his notoriety as an author of historical occurrences and events, his scientific studies; his tenure as a co-editor of one of Frederick Douglass' newspapers and his writing first novel by a black American. Delany is not easily ignored. Such a man of his stature is only purposely ignored!
Dr. Delany wrote:
"A calamity such as the world has never before witnessed--a calamity, the most heart-rending, caused by the perpetration of a deed at the hands of a wretch, the most infamous and atrocious--a calamity as humiliating to America as it is infamous and atrocious--has suddenly brought our country to mourning by the untimely death of the humane, the benevolent, the philanthropic, the generous, the beloved, the able, the wise, the great, and good man, the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, the Just. In his fall, a mighty chieftain and statesman has passed away. God, in his inscrutable providence, has suffered this, and we bow with meek and humble resignation to his Divine will, because He does all things well. God's will be done!"
P. 222