hour came for dealing with slavery, as Lincoln had surmised, he had done his
duty and it had cost his life.^77 Abraham Lincoln, racism and all, was the
blacks’ legitimate hero, as earlier John Brown had been. In a sense, Brown and
Lincoln were even killed for the same deed: arming black people for their own
liberation. People around the world mourned the passing of both men.
In Vicksburg, Mississippi, these African Americans gathered at the courthouse
to hear the news of Lincoln’s death confirmed, to express their grief, and
perhaps to seek protection in the face of an uncertain future.
But when I ask my (white) college students on the first day of class who
their heroes are in American history, only one or two in a hundred pick
Lincoln.^78 Even those who choose Lincoln know only that he was “really
great”—they don’t know why. Their ignorance makes sense—after all,
textbooks present Abraham Lincoln almost devoid of content. No students
choose John Brown. Not one has ever named a white abolitionist, a
Reconstruction Republican, or a white civil rights martyr. Yet these same
students feel sympathy with America’s struggle to improve race relations.
Among their more popular choices are African Americans, from Sojourner
Truth and Frederick Douglass to Rosa Parks and Malcolm X.