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Part memoir and part history, the book is an account of John E. Washington's childhood among African Americans in Washington, DC, and of the black people who knew or encountered Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln. Washington recounted stories told by his grandmother's elderly friends--stories of escaping from slavery, meeting Lincoln in the capitol, learning of the president's assassination, and hearing ghosts at Ford's Theatre. He also mined the US government archives and researched little-known figures in Lincoln's life, including William Johnson, who accompanied Lincoln from Springfield to Washington, and William Slade, the steward in Lincoln's White House. Washington was fascinated from childhood by the question of how much African Americans themselves had shaped Lincoln's views on slavery and race, and he believed Lincoln's Haitian-born barber, William de Fleurville, was a crucial influence. Washington also extensively researched Elizabeth Keckly, the dressmaker to Mary Todd Lincoln, and advanced a new theory of who helped her write her controversial book, Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House (1868). Firm in his conviction that the history of Lincoln's presidency must include the history of African Americans, Washington sought advice and support from the white establishment and obtained an introduction to his book by writer Carl Sandburg and a preface by Lincoln scholar James G. Randall. A new introduction by Kate Masur places Washington's book in its own context, explaining the contents of They Knew Lincoln in light of not only the era of emancipation and the Civil War, but also Washington's own times, when the nation's capital was a place of great opportunity and creativity for members of the African American elite. On publication, a reviewer noted that the "collection of Negro stories, memories, legends about Lincoln" seemed "to fill such an obvious gap in the material about Lincoln that one wonders why no one ever did it before." This edition brings it back to print for a twenty-first century readership that remains fascinated with Abraham Lincoln.… (mais)
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY RACE
If I am indebted to the wise and learned scholars who have rendered so much valuable assistance, I feel equally so toward these poor old souls who were willing to tell all they knew and heard about the man who had broken their chains and made them free:
Those Who Knew Lincoln and Served Him
Primeiras palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Elizabeth Keckley's 1886 memoir, Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the Whitehouse, suddenly reentered national consciousness in the mid-1930s, when journalist and Democratic political operative David Rankin Barbee claimed that Keckley had not written the book and, remarkably, had never existed. (Introduction by Kate Masur)
From childhood, I had always tried to get a true picture of Lincoln as he appeared to the ignorant slave and his offspring. (Foreword by the author)
When reading the manuscript of this book I found myself enjoying a peculiar unity it carries throughout. (Introduction by Carl Sandburg)
My earliest recollections are of those of a little boy playing on E Street near Ford's Theater, between 9th and 10th Streets, Washington, D. C., and sitting up listening to ghost stories of the neighborhood as told by old colored people who worked and lived there, and hearing wonderful stories about Lincoln, his family, and Booth, from the mouths of some who had really seen them, and from others who claimed they had seen their ghosts. (Prelude)
Citações
Últimas palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Do they part as of old, singing "God be with us till we meet again," and with a soft "Amen" after the final prayer? (end of Prelude)
Part memoir and part history, the book is an account of John E. Washington's childhood among African Americans in Washington, DC, and of the black people who knew or encountered Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln. Washington recounted stories told by his grandmother's elderly friends--stories of escaping from slavery, meeting Lincoln in the capitol, learning of the president's assassination, and hearing ghosts at Ford's Theatre. He also mined the US government archives and researched little-known figures in Lincoln's life, including William Johnson, who accompanied Lincoln from Springfield to Washington, and William Slade, the steward in Lincoln's White House. Washington was fascinated from childhood by the question of how much African Americans themselves had shaped Lincoln's views on slavery and race, and he believed Lincoln's Haitian-born barber, William de Fleurville, was a crucial influence. Washington also extensively researched Elizabeth Keckly, the dressmaker to Mary Todd Lincoln, and advanced a new theory of who helped her write her controversial book, Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House (1868). Firm in his conviction that the history of Lincoln's presidency must include the history of African Americans, Washington sought advice and support from the white establishment and obtained an introduction to his book by writer Carl Sandburg and a preface by Lincoln scholar James G. Randall. A new introduction by Kate Masur places Washington's book in its own context, explaining the contents of They Knew Lincoln in light of not only the era of emancipation and the Civil War, but also Washington's own times, when the nation's capital was a place of great opportunity and creativity for members of the African American elite. On publication, a reviewer noted that the "collection of Negro stories, memories, legends about Lincoln" seemed "to fill such an obvious gap in the material about Lincoln that one wonders why no one ever did it before." This edition brings it back to print for a twenty-first century readership that remains fascinated with Abraham Lincoln.
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