Lincoln’s views on race reflect the social sentiments of most white Americans from the founding through the nadir of race relations in America that went well into the 1900s, as Lerone Bennett‘s early own life paradoxically points out. We cannot indict Lincoln for his earliest views on the inequality of the races, without indicting American society for the past 400 years.

Indeed, it is fair to interpret that Jefferson’s liberating ideas on human equality were derived from the needs of all people and not their innate faculties. Illuminated in this light, Lincoln did believe – throughout his adult life – that the Declaration of Independence of the United States applied to all people. Why else did Lincoln refuse to let the slave states secede from the Union?

On thoughtful reflection, it should surprise no one that Lincoln realized most white Americans would not accept Blacks as their equals for a hundred years following emancipation. Sadly, did not history ultimately prove him right? It has been said that Lincoln’s greatest attribute as a politician was his ability to see things as the truly were.

In the end, Blacks have fought for racial respect for more than a century after Lincoln’s martyrdom. Notwithstanding the limits of his direct experience with African-American, prior to his presidency, Blacks have had no greater friend than Abraham Lincoln, throughout the annals of American History. If only he had lived, we would most surely have come out of Reconstruction a more united and equitable nation.

Not until the last years of the Civil War – as hundreds of thousands of freed Blacks demonstrated their love for this country and risked their lives in mortal combat for its preservation – did Lincoln’s affinity towards Black Americans transcend stereotypical racism. It was only after what David Blight called that “infamous meeting of August 1862” on the feasibility of colonialization did Lincoln learn first-hand how much American Blacks loved this country and were prepared to make a go out of living freely, if not equally, along side American Whites. Until then, given how they had been so mistreated, what reason would he have had to believe that they would really wish to do so?

With all that was discussed about the man, no image of Lincoln was more provocative than that of the statue of “Father Abraham the Great Emancipator,” which depicts a Black man bowing on his knees before Lincoln. Given the racial sensitivities of our era, it is difficult not to be a little mortified by this image. Yet, we need to remember this statue represents a real historic event. To my mind, this scene glorifies the day Lincoln risked his life to joyfully walk along the streets of Richmond, Virginia, among a jubilant crowd of Blacks, who had been enslaved only the day before.

It would have been only fair and right to have quoted the President, who said to the man who kneeled before him – that he should stand up and knee to no one other than Almighty God. In this instant, Lincoln’s humane goodness shown through eternally. And so it is that Lincoln set every American free, who would follow him!