What Happened to the Great Emancipator?
Long after the Civil War, African Americans commemorated Abraham Lincoln as the Great Emancipator — a father figure who liberated them from centuries of slavery. Due to widespread discrimination, however, African Americans were often excluded from official Lincoln celebrations, including those held during the 1909 centennial. In response, blacks organized their own events, paying particular attention to the January 1 anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation as the day “when freedom came.”
In the early twentieth century, as African Americans grew more aware of their own contributions to national history, they elevated abolitionist Frederick Douglass and other notable black figures to Lincoln’s level. During the civil rights movement, many African Americans continued to admire Lincoln but some grew increasingly skeptical about his racial views and accomplishments, particularly the Emancipation Proclamation. In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., King declared Lincoln “a great American” but noted that blacks, though free, still lacked equal rights. Today, African Americans have different opinions about Lincoln, from favorable to highly critical.