Nice to hear from you. I have to disagree with you on this point. It seems to me that the video struck just the right balance between Bennett’s cynicism and Blight’s distinction between Lincoln on slavery, his racial outlook as well as the understanding of slavery within the Republican Party. I think it is important that Blight was used by Gates for the purposes of laying out a historical overview while he treated Bennett as an example of memory.

Marc

Thanks for this link. I watched the series all the way through. It was simply heartbreaking, and would have left me despondent had it not ended with Barack Obama.

Thank you for what you have said, Crystal, and thanks to Henry Louis Gates for this powerful documentary.

It is simply impossible for me not to view this film outside of the lens of memories of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and how comparisons were made to Lincoln, how the funeral was like Lincoln’s , the riderless horse, Jackie Kennedy stunned and vulnerable, horrified, as she opens the car door for herself, her pink suit bloody, my mother weeping and weeping and weeping. Walter Cronkite weeping. It is so hard to remember these things today. Our society is so hard. These discussions are truly killing me, and most likely others, too, who just remain silent because we are locked in our rigid postitions. Then there was the assassination of Dr. King, then Bobby Kennedy, then Malcolm.there were the little children killed in the school there were the beatings, the arrests, the body count of soldiers dead in Vietnam, the actual bodies brought back home to be buried, the lost dreams, the lost hopes, the loss, the loss, the loss. Let’s try to love each other, America let’s really give it a try.

Many of my peers also remember that groups such as the Quakers opposed slavery and violence. And many recall learning about abolitionists–especially the more militant ones (perhaps because such stories appear more exciting and sensationalistic). Of course, these two groups were not the only groups that actively opposed slavery. I do agree that more of an emphasis should be be put on teaching about the many white Americans who spoke and acted against slavery in peaceful yet powerful ways–doing so is just teaching honest history.

I find it interesting that this same line of thought is present in discussions about the Civil Rights Era in the 50′s and 60′s. Many of my peers, and myself included, often forget that many white Americans spoke and acted against the pervasive racism of that era. In one of my classes today we watched “A Class Divided” in which Iowa teacher Jane Elliott–who was white–conducted a two-day class exercize to teach her students about the horrible and degrading power of racism. It was comforting to be reminded that there were many courageous white Americans who stood against the racism of that time–just as there were many white Americans who stood against racism before, during, and after the Civil War.