Description
Book SynopsisThe forgotten but essential story of how President Lincoln welcomed African Americans to his White House in our nation’s most divided and war-torn era.
Jonathan White illuminates why Lincoln’s then-unprecedented welcome of African Americans to the White House transformed the trajectory of race relations in the United States. From his 1862 meetings with Black Christian ministers, Lincoln began inviting African Americans of every background to his home, from ex-slaves from the Deep South to champions of abolitionism such as Frederick Douglass. More than a good-will gesture, the president would confer with his guests about the essential issues of citizenship and voting rights. Drawing from an array of primary sources, White reveals how Lincoln used the White House as the stage to amplify African American voices. Even 155 years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln’s inclusion of African Americans remains a necessary example in a country still struggling from racial divisions today.
Table of ContentsForeword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Preface. “There Was No Color Line There”
Chapter 1. “A Continual Torment To Me”
Interlude. The Office
Chapter 2. “The Political Wonders of the Year”
Chapter 3. “A Spectacle, as Humiliating as it was Extraordinary”
Chapter 4. “The Lord Has Work For Me Here”
Interlude. Foreign Diplomats
Chapter 5. “The Promise Being Made, Must Be Kept”
Chapter 6. “I Felt Big There”
Chapter 7. “Without Molestation or Insult”
Interlude. The Ballot
Chapter 8. “To Keep the Jewel of Liberty within the Family of Freedom”
Chapter 9. “The Object is a Worthy One”
Chapter 10. “A Testimonial of Her Appreciation”
Interlude. City Point
Chapter 11. “Douglass, I Hate Slavery as Much as You Do”
Chapter 12. “In the Presence of a Friend”
Chapter 13. “All the People . . . Are Invited”
Interlude. The House Chamber
Chapter 14. “I’ve Come to Propose Something to You”
Chapter 15. “A Sacred Effort”
Chapter 16. “She is My Equal, and the Equal of All Others”
Interlude. Richmond
Chapter 17. “The Great Guiding Hand that Now Lay Paralyzed in Death”
Epilogue. “Emphatically the Black Man’s President”
Appendix. Unconfirmed Meetings
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
