History Professor Bernard E. Powers Jr. comments on The Sesquicentennial of the Civil War and African American History Month in the Post and Courier. http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2011/feb/03/african-american-history-month-hasan-inspiring/?print
“As president, Lincoln moved slowly against slavery but finally issued the Emancipation Proclamation and in a December 1862 address to Congress, he explained its importance in the boldest terms. He said: “We know how to save the Union. … In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. With these words the president had done what no other had done; he joined the destiny of the slave to the fate of the nation. In other words, black freedom and the democratic rights of whites would rise or fall together. Under the Proclamation’s auspices, two hundred thousand black men donned the Union uniform and pushed the nation toward freedom and greater perfection.”
” Through the Sesquicentennial events and this year’s African American History Theme we can and must tell the stories of how the nation was transformed for the benefit of all.”