Knowing Him by Heart: African Americans on Abraham Lincoln

About the program:

Though not blind to Abraham Lincoln's imperfections, Black Americans long ago laid a heartfelt claim to his legacy. At the same time, they have consciously reshaped the sixteenth president's image for their own social and political ends. Frederick Hord and Matthew D. Norman's anthology explores the complex nature of views on Lincoln through the writings and thought of Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary McLeod Bethune, Thurgood Marshall, Malcolm X, Gwendolyn Brooks, Barbara Jeanne Fields, Barack Obama, and dozens of others. The selections move from speeches to letters to book excerpts, mapping the changing contours of the bond--emotional and intellectual--between Lincoln and Black Americans over the span of one hundred and fifty years.

A comprehensive and valuable reader, Knowing Him by Heart examines Lincoln’s still-evolving place in Black American thought.

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About the authors

Matthew D. Norman (Speaker)

Matthew D. Norman is Associate Professor of History at University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.A. from Knox College. His research interests include Abraham Lincoln and the United States Civil War.

Dr. Frederick Lee Hord

Dr. Fred L. Hord is the Executive Director/Founder of the National Association for Black Culture Centers. Fred Lee Hord (Mzee Lasana Okpara) is a Professor Emeritus of Africana Studies at Knox College. He has also taught at Hunter College, Franklin College, Wabash College, Indiana University, Howard University, and North Carolina State University. Hord founded the Association for Black Culture Centers in 1988, served two terms as its President, and has been the Executive Director since 2000; he is the editor of “Nommo,” the bi-annual newsletter of the ABCC. Hord edited and contributed to Black Culture Centers: Politics of Identity and Survival, the only book available that focuses only on black Culture Centers, and will be editing it’s sequel. He has written and/or edited seven books, has one in the galleys, and has submitted proposals to three major publishers for books on the New Negro, Psychological Issues of Black Students on White Campuses, and African American Views on the Reluctant Emancipator. Hord has published several articles and poems in journals, made more than 100 presentations on college/university campuses, and served on the editorial Board of such national academic journals such as the Journal of Black Studies and the Western Journal of Black Studies. He has also been a long-time member of the Board of the National Council for Black Studies. He has been an activist in the Black and Multicultural community since the early Seventies.

Host or Publisher Harriet Beecher Stowe House