Page 26 - 1619 Project Curriculum

The 1619 Project

Nearly three years after that
White House meeting, Gen. Rob-
ert E. Lee surrendered at Appomat-

tox. By summer, the Civil War was

over, and four million black Amer-
icans were suddenly free. Contrary

to Lincoln’s view, most were not

inclined to leave, agreeing with the
sentiment of a resolution against

black colonization put forward at a
convention of black leaders in New

York some decades before: ‘‘This
is our home, and this our country.

Beneath its sod lie the bones of our
.

fathers. . . Here we were born, and

here we will die.’’

That the formerly enslaved did
not take up Lincoln’s off er to aban-

don these lands is an astounding tes-

tament to their belief in this nation’s

founding ideals. As W.E.B. Du Bois

wrote, ‘‘Few men ever worshiped

Freedom with half such unquestion-
ing faith as did the American Negro
for two centuries.’’ Black Americans

had long called for universal equal-

ity and believed, as the abolitionist

Martin Delany said, ‘‘that God has

made of one blood all the nations

that dwell on the face of the earth.’’

A demonstrator at the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Liberated by war, then, they did not

to fight for black suffrage. seek vengeance on their oppres-

sors as Lincoln and so many other

volunteers for the war, was forced That August day, as the men ancestors had arrived on these white Americans feared. They did

to reconsider his opposition to arrived at the White House, they shores, before Lincoln’s family, the opposite. During this nation’s

allowing black Americans to fight were greeted by the towering long before most of the white peo- brief period of Reconstruction,

for their own liberation. The presi- Lincoln and a man named James ple insisting that this was not their from 1865 to 1877, formerly enslaved

dent was weighing a proclamation Mitchell, who eight days before had country. The Union had not entered people zealously engaged with the

that threatened to emancipate all been given the title of a newly creat- the war to end slavery but to keep democratic process. With federal

yet
enslaved people in the states that ed position called the commission- the South from splitting off, troops tempering widespread white

had seceded from the Union if the er of emigration. This was to be his black men had signed up to fight. violence, black Southerners started

states did not end the rebellion. first assignment. After exchanging Enslaved people were fleeing their branches of the Equal Rights League

The proclamation would also allow a few niceties, Lincoln got right to forced- labor camps, which we like — one of the nation’s first human

the formerly enslaved to join the it. He informed his guests that he to call plantations, trying to join the rights organizations — to fight dis-

Union army and fight against their had gotten Congress to appropri- eff ort, serving as spies, sabotaging crimination and organize voters;

former ‘‘masters.’’ But Lincoln wor- ate funds to ship black people, once confederates, taking up arms for his they headed in droves to the polls,

ried about what the consequences freed, to another country. cause as well as their own. And now where they placed other formerly

of this radical step would be. Like ‘‘Why should they leave this Lincoln was blaming them for the enslaved people into seats that their

many white Americans, he opposed country? This is, perhaps, the first war. ‘‘Although many men engaged enslavers had once held. The South,

slavery as a cruel system at odds question for proper consideration,’’ on either side do not care for you for the first time in the history of

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.

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with American ideals, but he also Lincoln told them. ‘‘You and we are one way or the other without the this country, began to resemble a
opposed black equality. He believed diff erent races. . Your race suffer institution of slavery and the col- democracy, with black Americans

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.

that free black people were a ‘‘trou- very greatly, many of them, by liv- ored race as a basis, the war could elected to local, state and federal

blesome presence’’ incompatible ing among us, while ours suffer from not have an existence,’’ the presi- offices. Some 16 black men served in

with a democracy intended only your presence. In a word, we suffer dent told them. ‘‘It is better for us Congress — including Hiram Rev-

for white people. ‘‘Free them, and on each side.’’ both, therefore, to be separated.’’ els of Mississippi, who became the Photograph by Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

make them politically and socially You can imagine the heavy As Lincoln closed the remarks, first black man elected to the Senate.

our equals?’’ he had said four years silence in that room, as the weight Edward Thomas, the delegation’s (Demonstrating just how brief this

earlier. ‘‘My own feelings will not of what the president said momen- chairman, informed the president, period would be, Revels, along with

admit of this; and if mine would, we tarily stole the breath of these five perhaps curtly, that they would con- Blanche Bruce, would go from being

well know that those of the great black men. It was 243 years to sult on his proposition. ‘‘Take your full the first black man elected to the last

mass of white people will not.’’ the month since the first of their time,’’ Lincoln said. ‘‘No hurry at all.’’ for nearly a hundred years, until

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