Knowing Him by Heart

Frederick Hord is a professor of Black studies and director of the Department of African Studies at Knox College. He is the editor of I Am Because We Are: A Black Philosophy Reader and Reconstructing Memory: Black Literary Criticism. Matthew D. Norman is an associate professor of history at the University of Cincinnati, Blue Ash College.

• Introduction Frederick Douglass, Emancipation Day Address at Poughkeepsie, New York, August 2, 1858Frederick Douglass, “The Chicago Nominations,” June, 1860H. Ford Douglas, Address at Framingham, Massachusetts, July 4, 1860Frederick Douglass, “The Inaugural Address,” April, 1861“President Lincoln’s Inaugural,” Editorial in the Weekly Anglo-African, New York, March 16, 1861“The Fatal Step Backward,” Editorial in the Anglo-African, September 21, 1861Jabez P. Campbell, “The President and the Colored People,” October 1, 1861, Trenton, New JerseyRobert Hamilton, “The President’s Message,” Editorial in the Anglo-African, December 7, 1861Robert Hamilton, “The Hanging of Gordon for Man Stealing,” Editorial in the Anglo-African, March 1, 1862Henry McNeal Turner on Lincoln’s Proposal for Compensated Emancipation, March 16, 1862“The Emancipation Message,” Editorial in the Weekly Anglo-African, New York, March 22, 1862Daniel Alexander Payne, Account of Meeting with Abraham Lincoln, April 1862Henry Highland Garnet on Emancipation in Washington, DC, May 12, 1862Philip A. Bell, Editorial on Lincoln’s Revocation of Gen. Hunter’s Emancipation Decree in the Pacific Appeal, San Francisco, California, June 14, 1862Edward M. Thomas to Abraham Lincoln, Washington, DC, August 16, 1862Frederick Douglass, “The President and His Speeches,” September, 1862Resolutions of Newtown, New York Meeting on Lincoln’s Colonization Proposal, August 20, 1862Alfred P. Smith, Letter to President Lincoln in Response to Colonization Proposal, Saddle River, New Jersey, September 5, 1862Frances Ellen Watkins Harper on Lincoln’s Colonization Proposal, September 27, 1862Philip A. Bell, Editorial on the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in the Pacific Appeal, San Francisco, California, September 27, 1862Frederick Douglass, “Emancipation Proclaimed,” October, 1862George B. Vashon, Open Letter to President Lincoln on Colonization, October, 1862Henry McNeal Turner, Response to Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, September 26, 1862Thomas Strother on Lincoln’s Colonization Proposal, October 4, 1862Ezra R. Johnson, “The Liberty Bells are Ringing,” October 4, 1862C. P. S., “The President on Emancipation,” October 4, 1862Free Black People of Washington, DC, Letter to President Lincoln on Colonization, November 2, 1862Frederick Douglass, “January First 1863”Emancipation Celebration at Beaufort, South Carolina, January 1, 1863Philip A. Bell, “The Year of Jubilee Has Come!” January 3, 1863Robert Hamilton, “The Great Event,” Anglo-African, January 3, 1863Emancipation Celebration at Trenton, New Jersey, January 1, 1863James Smith, Report on Emancipation Celebration at Elmira, New York, January 5, 1863Jeremiah B. Sanderson, Address at Emancipation Jubilee in San Francisco, January 14, 1863Osborne P. Anderson, Remarks on the Emancipation Celebration in Chicago, January 1, 1863H. Ford Douglas to Frederick Douglass, Colliersville, Tennessee, Jan. 8, 1863Thomas Morris Chester, Speech at Cooper Institute, New York, New York, January 20, 1863James H. Hudson, Letter to the Editor of the Pacific Appeal, February 25, 1863Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, “The President’s Proclamation,” March 7, 1863John Proctor to Abraham Lincoln, Beaufort, South Carolina, April 18, 1863William Slade to Abraham Lincoln, Washington, DC April 28, 1863Robert Purvis, Address to the American Anti-Slavery Society, New York, May 12, 1863Hannah Johnson to Abraham Lincoln, Buffalo, New York, July 31, 1863Frederick Douglass, “The Commander-in-Chief and His Black Soldiers,” August, 1863Leonard A. Grimes to Abraham Lincoln, Washington, DC, August 21, 1863Jeremiah Asher to Abraham Lincoln, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 7, 1863Robert Hamilton, Editorial on Lincoln’s Letter to James C. Conkling in the Anglo-African, New York, September 12, 1863Robert Hamilton, Editorial Endorsing Lincoln for a Second Term as President in the Anglo-African, New York, October 24, 1863African Civilization Society, Address to Abraham Lincoln, Washington, DC, November 5, 1863Frederick Douglass, Address to the American Anti-Slavery Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 4, 1863Philip A. Bell, Editorial on President Lincoln’s Annual Message in the Pacific Appeal, San Francisco, California, December 12, 1863William Florville to Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois, December 27, 1863Thomas R. Street, Emancipation Day Address, Virginia City, Nevada Territory, January 1, 1864Philip A. Bell, Editorial Endorsing Lincoln for a Second Term in Office in the Pacific Appeal, San Francisco, California, January 9, 1864John H. Morgan et al. to Abraham Lincoln, Pensacola, Florida, January 16, 1864Mattild Burr to Abraham Lincoln, January 18, 1864Amos G. Beman on the First Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, January 23, 1864Richard H. Cain to Abraham Lincoln, Washington, DC, January 27, 1864Jean Baptiste Roudanez and Arnold Bertonneau, Memorial to Abraham Lincoln, March 10, 1864Petition of North Carolina Freedmen to Abraham Lincoln, April or May, 1864Don Carlos Rutter to Abraham Lincoln, St. Helena Island, South Carolina, May 29, 1864George E. Stephens, Letter to the Editor of the Anglo-African, May 26, 1864James W. C. Pennington, Letter to the Editor of the Anglo-African, New York, June 9, 1864“Africano,” Letter to the Editor of the Anglo-African, Point Lookout, Maryland, July 18, 1864Annie Davis to Abraham Lincoln, Belair, Maryland, August 25, 1864Frederick Douglass to Abraham Lincoln, Rochester, New York, August 29, 1864Robert Hamilton, Editorial on the Presidential Election in the Anglo-African, New York, September 24, 1864“Africano,” Letter to Editor of Anglo-African, Point Lookout, Maryland, September 2, 1864S. W. Chase, Remarks to Abraham Lincoln upon Presenting a Bible, September 7, 1864Sojourner Truth, Account of Meeting with Abraham Lincoln, October 29, 1864Robert Hamilton Gives Thanks for Lincoln’s Re-election, November 19, 1864Martin Delany, Account of Meeting with Abraham Lincoln, February 8, 1865George Washington to Abraham Lincoln, Hilton Head, South Carolina, March 19, 1865Thomas Morris Chester, Report on Lincoln’s Visit to Richmond, Virginia, April 4, 1865Isaac J. Hill, Account of Lincoln’s Visit to Richmond, April 4, 1865Alexander H. Newton, Account of Lincoln’s Visit to Richmond, April 4, 1865Jacob Thomas, Sermon Preached in Memory of Abraham Lincoln at AME Zion Church, Troy, New York, April 16, 1865Resolutions Passed on Lincoln’s Assassination in Middletown, Connecticut, April 20, 1865Martin Delany, Proposal for a Monument to Abraham Lincoln, April 20, 1865Robert Hamilton, “Thy Will Be Done” April 22, 1865James W. C. Pennington on Lincoln’s Funeral Procession through New York City, April 27, 1865Angeline R. Demby, Poem in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, April 29, 1865Reaction to Lincoln’s Assassination in Baltimore, April, 1865Henry O. Wagoner, Report on Lincoln’s Funeral Procession in Chicago, May 2, 1865George W. Le Vere, Eulogy of Abraham Lincoln, New Orleans, Louisiana, May 22, 1865Frederick Douglass, Speech at Cooper Institute, New York, June 1, 1865Frederick Douglass, Draft of A Speech on Lincoln, circa December, 1865Address of the Illinois Convention of Colored Men to the American People, Galesburg, Illinois, October 16-18, 1866Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes, 1868Paul Trevigne, Editorial on Emancipation Day in the New Orleans Tribune, New Orleans, Louisiana, January 1, 1869Thomas N. C. Liverpool, Address on Lincoln’s Birthday, Cincinnati, Ohio, Feb. 12, 1873Frederick Douglass, Address at Dedication of the Freedmen’s Monument, Washington, DC, April 14, 1876H. Cordelia Ray, “Lincoln,” Poem written for Dedication of the Freedmen’s Monument, Washington, DC, April 14, 1876George Washington Williams, A History of the Negro Race in America, 1882Emmanuel K. Love, Emancipation Day Address at Savannah, Georgia, January 2, 1888William S. Scarborough>, Remarks at Ohio Republican League Club Lincoln Banquet, Columbus, Ohio, February 13, 1888John Mercer Langston, Memorial Day Address at Washington, DC, May 30, 1891Peter H. Clark on Lincoln and Emancipation, May 18, 1892Frederick Douglass, Address at Lincoln Birthday Celebration, Brooklyn, New York, February 13, 1893E. W. S. Hammond, “Lincoln on the Negro,” May 11, 1893Charles W. Anderson, Address on Emancipation Proclamation, Chicago, Illinois, February 12, 1895Booker T. Washington, Address at the Union League Club, Brooklyn, New York, February 12, 1896Harriet Tubman, Statement on Abraham Lincoln, July, 1896Julius F. Taylor, Critique of Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, August 7, 1897Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Emancipation Day Address at Decatur, Illinois, September 22, 1899Paul Laurence Dunbar, “Lincoln,” 1899Elizabeth Thomas, Reminiscence of Abraham Lincoln, 1900Archibald H. Grimke, “Abraham Lincoln,” March, 1900Elizabeth Keckly on Lincoln, 1901“The Negro’s Natal Day,” February, 1904William A. Sinclair, The Aftermath of Slavery: A Study of the Condition and Environment of the American Negro, 1905Jesse Max Barber, “Abraham Lincoln and the Negro,” February, 1905Mary Church Terrell, Address on Abraham Lincoln, New York, February 13, 1905T. Thomas Fortune, Address on Lincoln, Montclair, New Jersey, February 16, 1906Reverdy C. Ransom, Address on Abraham Lincoln, circa 1907W. E. B. Du Bois, Address Delivered at Hull House, Chicago, Illinois, February 12, 1907William Monroe Trotter, “Proposed Mass. Lincoln Centennial,” Editorial in the Guardian on Celebration of Lincoln’s Birthday, Boston, Massachusetts, January 18, 1908Maude K. Griffin, “Lincoln--Man of Many Sides,” April, 1908Hightower T. Kealing, “Lincoln’s Birthday--The Great American Day,” January, 1909Silas X. Floyd, Address at Emancipation Day Celebration in Augusta, Georgia, January 1, 1909George L. Knox, “Celebrating in Memory of Lincoln,” January 2, 1909Selections from The American Missionary, Special Issue on Lincoln, February, 1909: Thomas S. Inborden, George W. Henderson, William Pickens, Kelly Miller, Etta M. T. Cottin, Archibald H. Grimke, and John M. GandyFred R. Moore, “Lincoln and the Negro,” February, 1909Sylvanie F. Williams, “Abraham Lincoln and Emancipation,” February, 1909Harry C. Smith, “Lincoln in a True Light,” February 6, 1909James H. Magee, Address at Lincoln Centennial Commemoration, Springfield, Illinois, February 12, 1909Booker T. Washington, Address at Republican Club of New York, New York, February 12, 1909James L. Curtis, Address on Centennial of Lincoln’s Birth, February 12, 1909John W. E. Bowen Sr., Address at Lincoln Centennial Commemoration, Chicago, Illinois, February 12, 1909Cora J. Ball, “On Lincoln’s Centennial,” February 13, 1909Fred R. Moore, “Lincoln Day And The White Folks,” March, 1909Thomas Nelson Baker, “Speech of Lincoln,” March-April, 1909Josephine Silone Yates, “Lincoln the Emancipator,” April, 1910Henry McNeal Turner, “Reminiscences of the Proclamation of Emancipation,” January, 1913James Weldon Johnson, “Father, Father Abraham,” February, 1913William H. Lewis, Speech before the Massachusetts General Assembly, February 12, 1913W. E. B. Du Bois, Address to Commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and Lincoln’s Birthday, Chicago, Illinois, February 12, 1913Booker T. Washington, Address at Rochester, New York, February 12, 1913John H. Murphy Sr., “A Government for the People,” July 5, 1913Robert R. Wright Sr., Address at the Emancipation Proclamation Exposition, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 14, 1913Theophile T. Allain, Address to Commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Decatur, Illinois, September 23, 1913Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, “Abraham Lincoln,” 1914Grand Household of Ruth, Resolution on Equal Suffrage, August, 1915Richard W. Gadsden, Address on Lincoln’s Birthday, Savannah, Georgia, February 12, 1918Edward A. Johnson, Speech on Lincoln’s Birthday in the New York State Assembly, Albany, New York, February 12, 1918Alice Dunbar-Nelson, “Lincoln and Douglass,” 1920Hubert H. Harrison, “Lincoln and Liberty--Fact Versus Fiction,” March, 1921Carter G. Woodson, The Negro in Our History, 1922Robert R. Moton, Draft for an Address at the Dedication of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC, May, 1922Georgia Douglas Johnson, “To Abraham Lincoln,” 1922W. E. B. Du Bois, Editorials on Abraham Lincoln in The Crisis, July, 1922 and September, 1922National Association of Colored Women, Speeches and a Resolution Commemorating Abraham Lincoln, 1923-1924Langston Hughes, “Lincoln Monument: Washington,” March, 1927Charles Chesnutt, Address to the Harlan Club, Cleveland, Ohio, February 14, 1928Walter White, “If Lincoln Were Here,” Radio Address on Lincoln’s Birthday, February 12, 1929Lamar Perkins, Address in the New York State Assembly, Albany, New York, February 12, 1930Samuel A. Haynes, Editorial in the Philadelphia Tribune on Lincoln and Emancipation Day, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 7, 1932William E. Lilly, Set My People Free: A Negro’s Life of Lincoln, 1932Robert L. Vann, “The Patriot and the Partisan,” Speech Delivered in Cleveland, Ohio September 11, 1932Carter G. Woodson, “Abolitionists Worried Lincoln,” November 24, 1932William Lloyd Imes, “A Negro’s Tribute to Lincoln,” Radio Address on Lincoln’s Birthday, February 12, 1935, Station WMCA, New York, February 12, 1935Eugene Gordon, Editorial on Lincoln, February, 1935Arthur W. Mitchell, Address in the US House of Representatives, June 1, 1936Grace Evans, Remarks at Emancipation Day Celebration, Connersville, Indiana, September 22, 1936Harry C. Smith, Editorial in the Cleveland Gazette, Cleveland, Ohio, February 20, 1937Selections from WPA Slave Narratives, 1936-38Aaron H. Payne, Address at Lincoln Day Dinner, New York, February 12, 1940Claude McKay, “Lincoln--Apostle of a New America,” February 13, 1943March on Washington Movement, Press Release Regarding the Celebration of Lincoln’s Birthday, February 14, 1943Roscoe Conkling Simmons, Address to a Joint Session of the Illinois General Assembly, February 13, 1944Joel A. Rogers, “Lincoln Wanted to Deport Negroes and Opposed Equal Rights,” February 26, 1944Mary McLeod Bethune, Address on Lincoln’s Birthday, Washington, DC, February 12, 1945John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom, 1947Ella Baker, Emancipation Day Address, Atlanta, Georgia, January 1, 1947Luther Porter Jackson, “The Views of Abraham Lincoln on Race Question,” February 12, 1948Willard Townsend, “Lincoln Did Not Envision 1952 in His Speech at Gettysburg,” January 19, 1952Ralph J. Bunche, Address at the Lincoln Association of Jersey City, New Jersey, February 12, 1954Mary McLeod Bethune, Editorial on Lincoln’s Birthday in the Chicago Defender, Chicago. Illinois, February 12, 1955Roy Wilkins, Radio Address to Commemorate Lincoln’s Birthday, February 11 or 12, 1958Mordecai W. Johnson, Address on Abraham Lincoln Before the Michigan Legislature, Lansing, Michigan, February 12, 1959Carl J. Murphy , “Freedom Is Never A Gift,” Editorial in the BaltimoreAfro-American, Baltimore, Maryland, January 23, 1960Jackie Robinson, “Kennedy Not Another Lincoln,” June 9, 1962Martin Luther King Jr., Draft of an Address at the Park Sheraton Hotel, New York, New York, September 12, 1962Thurgood Marshall, Remarks on Commemoration of the Centennial of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC, September 22, 1962Edith Sampson, Address on Emancipation Proclamation, circa 1962-1963Benjamin Quarles, Lincoln and the Negro, 1962John Hope Franklin, The Emancipation Proclamation, 1963St. Clair Drake, The Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Lectures, Chicago, Illinois, January-February, 1963Charles H. Wesley, Remarks at Opening of the Emancipation Proclamation Exhibit at the National Archives, Washington, DC, January 4, 1963Daisy Bates, “After 100 Years--Where Do We Stand?” An Address on the Emancipation Proclamation, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, January 6, 1963Malcolm X, Speech at the University of California, October 11, 1963Gwendolyn Brooks, “In the Time of Detachment, in the Time of Cold, 1965”John Hope Franklin, “Abraham Lincoln and Civil Rights,” an Address at Gettysburg National Cemetery, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1965Julius Lester, Look Out Whitey, Black Power’s Gon’ Get Your Mama, 1968Lerone Bennett Jr., “Was Abe Lincoln a White Supremacist?” February, 1968Henry Lee Moon, “Abraham Lincoln: A Man to Remember and Honor,” February, 1968John H. Sengstacke, “A New Lincoln,” Editorial in the Chicago Daily Defender, Chicago, February 12, 1968Norman E. W. Hodges, Breaking the Chains of Bondage, 1972Arvarh Strickland, Remarks at the Abraham Lincoln Symposium, Springfield, Illinois, February 12, 1980Mary Frances Berry, “Lincoln & Civil Rights for Blacks,” Address at the Abraham Lincoln Association Banquet, Springfield, Illinois, February 12, 1980Vincent Harding, There Is a River, 1981Clarence Thomas on Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence, 1987Barbara Jeanne Fields, “Who Freed the Slaves?” 1990Lerone Bennett Jr., Forced into Glory, 2000Henry Louis Gates Jr., Lincoln on Race and Slavery, 2009Barack Obama, “What I See in Lincoln’s Eyes,” July 4, 2005Barack Obama, Remarks at the Abraham Lincoln Association Banquet, Springfield, Illinois, February 12, 2009Index

"Exceptionally capacious . . . Hord and Norman provide valuable biographical and contextual headnotes to each selection to each selection as well as a judicious introduction. . . . The African American tributes to and deliberations on Lincoln collected in Knowing Him by Heart are often insightful, including an awareness of his faults of hesitation and slowness about emancipation." --National Review "Every student of Abraham Lincoln needs this important anthology. The editors more than achieve their stated purpose 'to present an extensive anthology of African American views of Lincoln that represents the complexity of these head-heart perceptions.'" --Lincoln Forum Bulletin "This valuable addition to the growing literature on Lincoln and race features a generous sampling of Civil-War-era African American opinion (including two little known, highly significant speeches by Frederick Douglass) and abundant later commentary, both positive and negative, from an impressively wide variety of sources, ranging from historians and journalists to poets and statesmen." --Michael Burlingame, author of The Black Man’s President: Abraham Lincoln, African Americans, and the Pursuit of Racial Equality "No voice has been more important in speaking about Abraham Lincoln than the African American one. Yet, that voice has been often buried in obscure newspapers and magazines and long-forgotten collections of papers. It has been fervent in its admiration, and it has been strident in its resentment at condescension. The remarkable achievement of Frederick Hord and Matthew Norman is to bring these varied voices together in one place, offering an unprecedented resource for understanding the fraught relationship of a national image of emancipation with a people longing for redemption. 'I know Abraham Lincoln,' declared one of these voices. Thanks to Hord and Norman, we can all 'know Lincoln' in an entirely new and multi-voiced way."--Allen C. Guelzo, author of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America