Knowing Him by Heart: African Americans on Abraham Lincoln

The only thing I dislike more than books of selected writings are first-person book reviews. Yet, here I go, writing a first-person book review of a book of selected writings. I do so to let the reader know I was prepared to dislike the book Knowing Him by Heart: African Americans on Abraham Lincoln. It is a book of quotes, speeches, and writings about Abraham Lincoln by African Americans, stemming the years 1858 to 2009.I don't like these types of books because they aren't real history books. I want a narrative. Books of selected writings make for questionable primary sources and people using them too often take them out of context. Plus, the editors of these types of books are often very subjective about what quotes and writings they use and even how to tie them together thematically. Finally, when it comes to Lincoln, there are numerous books like this about him. Many, if not most, are done poorly. So, do we really need another one?The answer is a resounding yes. Editors Fred Lee Hord, emeritus professor in Africana studies at Knox College, and Matthew D. Norman, an associate professor of history at the University of Cincinnati, Blue Ash College, do a wonderful job in selecting the speeches, letters, newspaper and magazine articles, and quotes for this book. They do an even better job in annotating the selections and in providing the context for the selections. Their introduction to this book alone is worth reading. The selections used for this book aren't excerpts but are speeches, letters, and articles in their entirety.The book begins with two entries from abolitionist Frederick Douglass and appropriately ends with two entries from President Barack Obama. If I was afraid of this book lacking a narrative history, that alone tells a story. In between these two thoughtful men, who are united in this book by how they wrestle with—indeed have to wrestle with—the Lincoln legacy, are opinions expressed by numerous other African Americans through the years. There are selections from such notable figures as Booker T. Washington, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and many more. African American activists, politicians, and academics are all represented. Several lesser-known, or even unknown, African Americans have their say as well, including quotes taken from twenty-four former slaves from the WPA Slave Narratives 1936–1938. Taken together, these individuals show differing and changing attitudes about Lincoln. They also show how all Americans, when they think about Civil Rights and race, wrestle with his legacy, even if they end up disagreeing about what that legacy is.There are many surprises in this book. A highlight for me is the inclusion of Gwendolyn Brooks's "In the Time of Detachment, in the Time of Cold, 1965," a poem I had not come across before. However, I enjoyed reading a 1962 speech by baseball hero Jackie Robinson, a Republican, who used Lincoln as a way to measure John F. Kennedy and declared, "We think the President is a fine man, like we said. But an Abraham Lincoln—he ain't."In all, there are more than two hundred entries in this book, including seventy-nine taken from letters, speeches, and articles written by African Americans during Lincoln's lifetime, when slavery still existed. The hopes and fears of these individuals for Lincoln are well reflected in these selections. Frederick Douglass has thirteen selections in the book, nine of these from when Lincoln was alive. Illinois, Lincoln's home state, is well represented by entries, often because persons coming to Illinois feel obligated to discuss Lincoln, such as W. E B. Du Bois in a talk at Chicago's Hull House in 1913, and because persons living in Illinois feel the Lincoln legacy more than most.As noted, the selections are full texts from speeches and writings. Lerone Bennett Jr.'s 1968 article "Was Abe Lincoln a White Supremacist?" runs twelve pages, and Frederick Douglass's 1876 "Address at the Dedication of the Freedman's Monument, Washington, DC" runs ten pages. Both entries are well known to academics but may be eye-opening to the casual Lincoln buff. The book can be read from beginning to end, but I suspect most readers will just pick it up and leaf through what interests them at the time.The University of Illinois Press is the publisher of Knowing Him by Heart: African Americans on Abraham Lincoln, but this is the sixth book in the Knox College Lincoln Studies Center Series. Like the other books in this series, most of which were edited by Douglas Wilson and the late Rodney Davis, this book makes an important contribution to the study of Lincoln. Forgive me for stepping back into the first person, but in my opinion this book, like the other books in this series, makes for a fine history.