Emancipation

Today, September 22, marks the sesquicentennial of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln. I have included below the text of this document. The full proclamation was to take effect 100 days later, on January 1, 1863. It is important to read this document (and then the entire proclamation) to understand its importance during the Civil War, and to fully know its limitations. Click here for the National Archives page on the Emancipation Proclamation and read it for yourself. I will be writing about the cultural (as well as political, social, and economic) impact of these documents during the next several months.


By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States, and each of the States, and the people thereof, in which States that relation is, or may be, suspended or disturbed.

That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all slave States, so called, the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States and which States may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of African descent, with their consent, upon this continent, or elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the Governments existing there, will be continued.

That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

That the executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States, and part of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof shall, on that day be, in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto, at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.

That attention is hereby called to an Act of Congress entitled "An Act to make an additional Article of War" approved March 13, 1862, and which act is in the words and figure following:

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That hereafter the following shall be promulgated as an additional article of war for the government of the army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and observed as such:

"Article-All officers or persons in the military or naval service of the United States are prohibited from employing any of the forces under their respective commands for the purpose of returning fugitives from service or labor, who may have escaped from any persons to whom such service or labor is claimed to be due, and any officer who shall be found guilty by a court martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service.

"Sec.2. And be it further enacted, That this act shall take effect from and after its passage."

Also to the ninth and tenth sections of an act entitled "An Act to suppress Insurrection, to punish Treason and Rebellion, to seize and confiscate property of rebels, and for other purposes," approved July 17, 1862, and which sections are in the words and figures following:

"Sec.9. And be it further enacted, That all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them and coming under the control of the government of the United States; and all slaves of such persons found on (or) being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude and not again held as slaves.

"Sec.10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escaping into any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, from any other State, shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except for crime, or some offence against the laws, unless the person claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that the person to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is alleged to be due is his lawful owner, and has not borne arms against the United States in the present rebellion, nor in any way given aid and comfort thereto; and no person engaged in the military or naval service of the United States shall, under any pretence whatever, assume to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to the service or labor of any other person, or surrender up any such person to the claimant, on pain of being dismissed from the service."

And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in the military and naval service of the United States to observe, obey, and enforce, within their respective spheres of service, the act, and sections above recited.

And the executive will in due time recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion, shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United States, and their respective States, and people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington this twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord, one thousand, eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

[Signed:] Abraham Lincoln
By the President

[Signed:] William H. Seward
Secretary of State

Immeasurable

In our true heroes/
Courage is distinguished by/
A measure of fear. 

 

Elizabeth Eckford, aged 15, integrating Central High School, Little Rock, Arkansas, September,1957.

Redux: September 15

 

Ballad of Birmingham

(On the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963)

Clockwise from top left: Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, 

Denise McNair, and Addie Mae Collins

Mother dear, may I go downtown
Instead of out to play,
And march the streets of Birmingham
In a Freedom March today?"

"No, baby, no, you may not go,
For the dogs are fierce and wild,
And clubs and hoses, guns and jails
Aren't good for a little child."

"But, mother, I won't be alone.
Other children will go with me,
And march the streets of Birmingham
To make our country free."

"No, baby, no, you may not go,
For I fear those guns will fire.
But you may go to church instead
And sing in the children's choir."

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,
And bathed rose petal sweet,
And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,
And white shoes on her feet.

The mother smiled to know that her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.

For when she heard the explosion,
Her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
Calling for her child.

She clawed through bits of glass and brick,
Then lifted out a shoe.
"O, here's the shoe my baby wore,
But, baby, where are you?"

                           --Dudley Randall, 1969

Happy Birthday, President Obama!

 

Hey, you two, I'm still waiting for my ticket to the birthday dinner!!!

 

James Baldwin: American Witness

"I am not a race and neither are you." --James Baldwin

This is the last installment of James Baldwin Week. The video I have included here is from a talk Baldwin delivered before the National Press Club in 1986, less than one year before his death on December 1, 1987. Baldwin always called himself a "witness"--a very apt characterization of his life, his work, and how he is presented here. During the discussion, Baldwin refers repeatedly to what he characterizes as the continuing American "aversion to history" which, in his view has forestalled true progress toward the ideals our country has espoused since its inception.

The video opens with a brief introduction of Baldwin--after he makes some commentary, there is an extended question-and-answer period where he speaks about black women's fiction, educational discrimination, the myth of "whiteness" (before the advent of whiteness studies), and his deep concern for young people. It is fascinating to hear Baldwin disabuse several questioners of their incorrect perceptions of his views on race. Baldwin is asked at the end of the discussion to name the "best" among all the works he authored--he gives a very beautiful answer, and then flashes his charming smile.

Throughout his life, Baldwin insisted that we had to become disillusioned (in its true meaning--to get rid of our illusions) in order to become fully mature. Through his fiction, drama, and essays, Baldwin's work was always about delineating and imbuing one's life  with a strong moral sense. I turn to writers such as James Baldwin to keep my mind focused as I struggle toward a deeper understanding of American history and literature and its importance in the development of our country and the fulfillment of its stated ethos.

At Baldwin's funeral, held at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Toni Morrison delivered one of the eulogies:

Toni Morrison’s eulogy at James Baldwin’s funeral in Dec 1987. 

"The season was always Christmas with you there and … you did not neglect to bring at least three gifts… You gave me a language to dwell in, a gift so perfect it seems my own invention… . The second gift was your courage, which you let us share: the courage of one who could go as a stranger in the village and transform the distances between people into intimacy with the whole world… The third gift was hard to fathom and even harder to accept. It was your tenderness – a tenderness so delicate I thought it could not last, but last it did and envelop me it did.

You knew, didn’t you, how I needed your language and the mind that formed it? How I relied on your fierce courage to tame wildernesses for me? How strengthened I was by the certainty that came from knowing you would never hurt me? You knew, didn’t you, how I loved your love? You knew. This then is no calamity. No, This is jubilee. “Our crown,” you said, “has already been bought and paid for. All we have to do,” you said, “is wear it.”

And we do, Jimmy. You crowned us."

 

All best,

Rebecca

Commemoration

What was behind those/

Beautiful, luminous eyes/

Was all written down.

James Baldwin, photographed in 1963 by his 

DeWitt Clinton High School friend, Richard Avedon.

American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.--Baldwin

 

On this day in 1924, one of the greatest writers and intellectuals of the 20th century was born. To get a sense of his brilliant beginnings, I think that those of you who have not read Baldwin should start with his essay collection, Notes of a Native Son...first. Then...read everything else. Baldwin's insistent conscience speaks to us today--it is amazing how prescient he was, and maybe a little terrifying. 

All best,

Rebecca

 

An Honest Man and a Good Writer

Profound intellects/
Dealing in unvarnished truth/
Are always suspect.

James Baldwin (1924-1987), by Van Vechten, 1955.

"Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent--which attitude certainly has a great deal to support it. On the other hand, it is only because the world looks on his talent with such a frightening indifference that the artist is compelled to make his talent important. So that any writer, looking back over even so short a span of time as I am here forced to assess, finds that the things which hurt him and the things which helped him cannot be divorced from each other; he could be helped in a certain way only because he was hurt in a certain way; and his help is simply to be enabled to move from one conundrum to the next--one is tempted to say that he moves from one disaster to the next." --James Baldwin

Read the entire 1952 essay from which this passage has been excerpted by clicking on the link below:

 Autobiographical Notes