Significance of the war and they said this led to reconstruction, the end of reconstruction. It builds up the southern myth that minimizes the significance of getting rid of slavery and paved the way for the terrible betrayal of the 13th and 14th amendments and the jim crow era which began to and in the 1950s. Do you agree with that . David what happens is lincoln from about 1876 onward becomes a marshmallow icon that can be consumed by whether you are a southern white supremacist or radical northerner, he becomes everybodys hero. In birth of the nation they say lincoln was the southpaws best friend, but he was killed. Its a wonderful movie wonderful in the sense of being technically wonderful, but it is a horrible, racist movie. Lincoln if we had only had abe lincoln around. He believes in colonizing the slaves abroad and all of that. He becomes absorbed very easily into jim crow and becomes a hero for jim crow people. To be sure. There are enough conservative things within lincoln hi
History news. Up next on American History tv David Reynolds editor of lincolns selected writings. He discussed president lincolns assassination and the man who shot and killed him. Actor john wilks booth. President lincoln died on april 15th, 1865. This event was hosted be i the City University of new york. Its about an hour and a half. Tomorrow to honor the 150th anniversary of his death lincoln was shot 150 years ago tonight and then died the next morning. President obama will proclaim a day of remembrance. For now though i want to take us back in time to that fateful night on april 14th, 1865. Ill first summarize what happened and then ill discuss the cultural background of Lincoln Lincoln and his murderer John Wilkes Booth. About this time in the evening 150 years ago Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln were preparing to go see the noted actress laura king in the comic play our american cousin which was featured at fords theater. It was wellknown that lincoln a regular t
Learning from Lincoln
Sean Wilentz is a historian of the leftist persuasion and also a principled opponent of the New York Times’s
1619 Project errors, distortions, and lies (my word, not his), now adopted as the orthodoxy of the Democratic Party. The problem is “A matter of facts,” he wrote in The Atlantic. He also signed off on the letter prominent historians sent to the Times challenging the project as ideological rather than historical.
Coincidentally with my own comments this week on Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, Professor Wilentz takes up Lincoln’s case in his New York Review of Books review “Lincoln’s rowdy America” in NYRB’s April 29 issue. Wilentz review David Reynolds’s new book,