Historical society. I am louise mirrer, New Yorks historical president and ceo. And im happy to see all of you this morning. Todays program Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and emancipation is the President Bill Clinton Lecture in american history at New York historical. And id like to thank our great Trustee And Benefactor Bernard Schwartz for his generosity in making this event, along with so many of our public programs possible. [ applause ] id also like to recognize and thank one of our trustees who has joined us today. And that is one of our panelists david blight. Ill take this opportunity to say how proud we are to count david among our trustees at New York historical. I also want to recognize Laura Washington and Mercedes Franklin who are cochairs of our Frederick Douglass council, and of Course Welcome all the members of our Frederick Douglass council who have joined us today. [ applause ] and i want to recognize a longstanding and very special friend of New York historica
Captioning performed by vitac we are delighted to welcome this Mornings Guest speakers. David blight is class of 1954 professor of american History And Director of the center for the study of slavery, Resistance And Abolition at yale university. Hes the author of a dozen books including editions of douglasss first two autobiographies. His most recent book won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction and 2019 francis partman prize. In 2001 he was awarded the Frederick Douglass prize. Edna Greene Medford is professor of history at howard university. She specializes in africanamerican history, the civil war, and reconstruction. Shes a member of several advisory boards, among them the association for the study of africanamerican life in history, the lincoln forum, Abraham Lincoln association, the Abraham Lincoln Institute and the group of president lincolns cottage. Shes the author of several books. Harold holzer is director of Roosevelt House public Policy Institute at hunter college. He co
Emancipation is the bill Clinton Lecture in history at New York historical. Id like to thank our great trustee and benefactor, earnhardt shorts, for Hamza Generosity in making this event along with so many of our public programs possible. [applause] id also like to recognize and thank one of our trustees who has joined us today. Thats one of our panelists, david. And take the support in early to say how proud we are to count today but among our trustees at New York historical i also want to recognize Laura Washington and mercedes franklin, who are cochairs of our Frederick Douglass council. And of course welcome all members of her Frederick Douglass council who have joined us today. And i want to recognize longstanding and special friend of New York historical, eric, who has also joined us this morning. And thank eric for all he and his family has done over a, very very long time here at this institution. Thank you. [applause] this Mornings Program will last about an hour and a half an
where he also had figures such as this but in his case, it s peace rielding in ayuchlful chariot. you can see the peace in the center. the partially nude female figure crowned riding the four horses and golden victory figures off to each side. well, this is what mills had in mind for george washington. they were thinking of it for george washington that transposed him from the human, from the everyday, from a general to now a super human almost god-like figure. and so when construction, which had been halted on the washington monument for about 20 years in the 1860s and 70s, when construction was started up again, the engineer, thomas casey, who really loved modern inventions, elevators, electric lights, decided no we re not going to put that temple at the bottom. he wanted the washington monument to stay that would represent america. moving forward into the 20th century. and so he now saw it as a sleek monument of american ingenuity
and lincoln forium chair. welcome back to c-span, sir. guest: thank you for having me. host: you had a recent op ed talking about the topic of confederate monments and statues and a position now you re taking that with a little bit different. what s your position now? guest: well, if i could go back briefly. a few years ago i had the honor of speaking at the getiesburg national cemetery where the flag behind me is from the anniversary of the getiesburg address. i made a suggest sort of impor tuned people to consider contect liesing confederate monments. making sure that there were alternative monments. and frankly nothing happened in the three subsequent years. it s not an easy thing to make occur. it s expensive, time consuming, requires consensus on text and methodology, and it didn t work. and since that time, other convullsive events have occurred most recently of course the killing of george floyd and the response has been directed at monments among other institutions th