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Black History Month
Today is Lincoln’s birthday, his 214th birthday! During the 1800s Abraham Lincoln knew Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist, these two men matching their fame. Their lives differed remarkedly but in the end, they came to a consensus.
What should we do? What can we do? What will we do?
Although not always in agreement, Douglass believed that Lincoln was a decent and honest man, and he fully believed that “slavery would not survive the war.” The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, and ended on May 9, 1865. Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the US from March 4, 1861, ending April 15, 1865.
Mid-term, 1863, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation proclaiming all enslaved people will be free. (Note: The document applied only to enslaved people in the Confederacy, and not to those in the border states that remained loyal to the Union.) It had little effect, but the symbolic power was striking. By end of the war, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were passed outlawing slavery and were intended to protect all citizens from racial discrimination in voting.
When Douglass and Lincoln met the last time on August 19, 1864, they created a paradigm shift as Douglass later recalled, “in this multitude of the elite of the land, I felt myself a man among men.” Their friendship ended abruptly on April 14, 1865, just a month after Lincoln’s second inauguration when he was assassinated.
Frederick Douglass died thirty years later in 1895 but throughout his life, he and Lincoln epitomized the way all Americans from all walks of life, including care partners, can come to a consensus.
As care partners, we must come to a consensus about how we will continue our journey and how we will adapt to the changes that come.
What should I do? What can I do? What will I do?
Life Lessons:
“Nothing valuable shall be obtained without labor and agony” because “if there is no struggle, there is no progress.”—Frederick Douglass
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” —Charles Darwin