he'd just been walking. [laughter] they speeded up the film to make it look as if he was a little bit demented and doing this dance in front of the railway car. the car, of course, was soon moved back to france in 945. 1945. thank you, i think we probably have finished what we had to do. i appreciate your all coming. >> thank you. [applause] >> and snell an encore books notes. lebron bennett jr. discusses his book force into glory, abraham lincoln's white dream. the author argues that president lincoln was a racist his political mentor with senator henry clay, a kentucky slave owner.

this program originally aired in did ges about an hour long. >> lebron bennett jr., what does you get?th >> i thought the book captured the essence of what i was trying to say in the sense that lincoln, from my standpoint was driven, forced to a glory that he resisted every step of the way.adam one of the great critics during the civil war, he and washingtoi rode a paragraph which said that he was literally whip into glory. i felt like maybe forced would be a betterr term for the covere so i settled on forced in the glory. it, again, captures my idea and while the basic areas of thisoo book, all these extraordinary

men and the lemon, many of themh white in washington, 86 to 63,g ofe american people to avoid the not know anything about any of the. l ashley, zechariah chance andas let, salman, all these people, t say, and that try to detail it. it really pushed reason to glory lincoln himself said i was driven to it, literally driven e to a. >> he said that abraham "abr lincoln's white dream. what does that mean? >> it means contrary to what most people think abraham lincoln's dpestesir .. was to

deport all black people and create an all-white nation. it sounds like a wild idea now, and it is a wild idea, but from about 1852 until his death, he worked feverishly to try to create deportation plans, colonization plans to send black people either to africa or south america or to the islands of the sea. most people -- and you know the story -- one of his gatest utterances, people quote it all the time, copeland's grea thing, we cannot escape history. the last best hope of the world. he said these words in a state of the union message on december 1, 1862, in which he asked congress to pass three constitutional amendments -- one to buy the slaves, second

to declare free all people who had actually escaped, but the third one, his proposed5th amendment, asked congress to allocate money to deport black people to another place. now, it's his most -- i think probably more than the second inaugural, the we cannot escape history ending there is just poetry everybody knows. nobody talks about the fact that what he was asking congress to do was to deport black people. it was one of his deepest ideas. and i make the point ao -- and almost everything i say in here i take from lincoln or from documents at the time. it was not just something he wanted to push black people out. he had an idea of this great, giant vision of white people coming here and black people

leaving, and creating this all-white nation. as a matter of fact, as you know, in his "i have a dream" speech at alton, illinois, in 1858, he called for a haven, a white haven for free white people everywhere, the world over. now, these are lincoln's words. the interesting thing aut that is that he underlined these four words -- free, white, people, everywhere. he underlined them. this was his "i have a dream" speech. he was passionately committed to -- to deporting black people and creating a white nation. let me say in extenuation, he believed that that was the only way to solve the race problem. i find that offensive and strange, but he believed that was the only way to solve the race-based problem. he said over and over again he did not believe that black people and white people cou live together in equality in

thenited states of america. >> did you ever think differently about abraham lincoln? >> no, really, and i try to explain in the beginning of the book, first sentence in the book, the first sentence in the book says i was a child in whitest mississippi, reading by my light when i discovered for the first time that everything i had been taught about abraham lincoln was a lie. now, i imagine i was 10 or 11, somewhere in there. before then, apparently, i had agreed that this great -- this was a great encipor. what happened, actlly, when i was 10 or 11, i oht to explain, i was one of these strange children. i read everything i could put my hand on, any book, any piece of paper, anything i could find i read. and so for some strange reason, in mississippi, in the 1930's,

i happened to see abraham lincoln's address at charleston, illinois, on september 18, 1858. >> the lincoln-douglas debate? >>n the lincoln-douglas debate, and i read it, and i was just absolutely shocked. and from that point on, i started to researching lincoln and trying to find everything i could about him. i wasn't trying to get a degree. i wasn't trying to pass a course. as i say in the book, i was trying to save my life because i find it difficult to understand how people could say this man was the greatest apostle of brotherhood in the united states of america. >> you say on page 114, not only is lincoln a church, he is also an industry. >> precisely. precisely. and the key -- one of the keys to the american personality, but an industry, yes, all over the country, now, people are

engad in packaging information on lincoln, putting together exhibits on lincoln, doing this and doing that about lincoln. it's a whole industry that employs hundreds of people, probably thousands of people. and it's important from that way, he is also a religion. and as i indicate in that same chapter, barbara petrich, i think her name is, said in "the new york times" before this book was published that lincoln is such a god that the ordinary rules of evidence don't apply to him. and also the third point i think is important. he is one of the keys to america. americans see themselves in lincoln. american politicians tend to measure themselves by lincoln. he is a secular saint.

i know that, and i know and i said that what i am proposing here is that we look at lincoln is painful, painful to whites and to blacks, but i think it's necessary for the health of this country and for what we've got to do about completing a task we started in the civil war but never finished. >> he you ever been invited to speak to the abraham lincoln association or the lincoln forum? >> neither, no, i have not. i talked to a number of groups across the country, but i have not been invited by those two groups. i have been honored by some lincoln associations before this came out, but, no, i have not been invited to speak to them. d one of the suggestions i make in this book, i feel strongly about it, that the ought to be a dialogue between

academic people, the lincoln tablishment, as i say, and other people who have a different vision of lincoln. to back up and to get into some -- this book has been attacked pretty harshly in some quarters, ped enthusiastically in others, but i am not up to this de in late summer, early fall, i have not seen a single review which disagrees with any one of my four major points. the fifth point they disagree with. i'm not -- i have not see a review anywhere which disagrees with my four or five major points. and if possible for me to make them, my first point is that the emancipation proclamation did not free ac people, and it's doubtful if it ever freed

anybody any where, and that abraham lincoln was not the great emancipator or a small emancipator or a medium-sized emancipator. that's the first point. >> let me stop and ask, did you say that, in fact, the emancipation proclamation may have created another half million slaves, as i remember. how did that happen? >> tha you, thank y. not only did it not free anybody, it enslaved or re-enslaved more slaves than it ever freed because lincoln said in the documt -- which most people will never read -- he said that he was specifically excluding certain slaves and -- in southern louisiana and eastern virginia and elsewhere, but these are the two main cat grist. now, why did he exclude these slaves in louisiana? because they were the only slaves he could have freed on january 1, 1863. the union contrled southern

louisiana, new orleans. the union controlled eastern virginia. now, on january 1, he could have freed these slaves. all he had to do is not specifically exclude them. instead of freeing them, abraham lincoln, unfortunately, on january 1, said i'm not talkg about you in this document. you're the same as you were as if this document never existed. so we have about 100,000 slaves in southern illinois -- southern louisiana, sorry about that, and 80,000r so in eastern virginia, having some 275,000 slaves in tennessee who were not touched by -- all across the south, i give an estimate of approximately 500,000 slaves who were re-enslaved or kept in slavery by the emancation proclamation. i will come back to that as i make my second point. and i will tell you the

critics' response to this. the second point is that abraham lincoln was a racist. i don't have any joy in making that, but i think truth is important. he who used the "n" word habitually, who loved darky -- darkie jokes and blackface shows, who said in illinois and elsewhere that he was opposed to black people voting, sitting on juries, any man with white people and holding office. two, lincoln was a racist. three, abraham lincoln wanted to deport black people and create an all-white nation. four, abraham lincoln was -- and this is the controversial point. maybe there are not five. four, that abraham lincoln was, contrary to what all the historians say, an equivocating, vacillating leader prolonged the war,

delayed ee mans pation, and increased the number of casualities. now, there is no agreement on that, -- emancipation, and increased the number of casualities. now, there is no agreement on that, but i will be brief on these other points. they say lerone bennett said that the emancipation proclamation didn't free black people, and he is a terrible man for disturbing the peace of the republic. that's the first sentence. the second sentence, of course, the emancipation proclamation didn't free black people. the 13th amendment, everybody knows that, freed black people. agree with my first point. the second point, they say lerone bennett, this is a review, says that abraham lincoln was a racist. he is a terrible man for saying that. of course he was a racist. second sentence. all white people in the 19th century were racists. i disagree with that. i defend white people in the 19th century. i think it's absurd to say that

everybody in the 19th century was a racist, but that's their defense. my point is they agreed with my second point. of course he was a racist. the third point, again, is lerone bennett says that abraham lincoln wanted to deport black people and creat a whitnaon. of course he wanted to deport black people. not because heisliked them, but because he loved them so muchand he didn't think they would ever be treated right in america. my point is in late summer, early fall, is that all of the critics i have seen agree with my basic points. i don't know a reputable historian with a library card anywhere who maintains that the emancipation proclamation freed black people. i don't think one exists anywhere. and yet, people are screaming and hollering, why did you s this? it's the truth. >> you were born where?

>> in mississippi. i was born in clarksdale. my mother was visiting there. i grew up in jackson. i grew up in jackson, mississippi. >> what did your dad do? >> my dad was a chauffeur, and my mother was a cook, she was a chef cook in a restaurant. there were two of us in the family, my sister and i, and we grew up in mississippi during the 1930's and 1940's. >> when did you leave? >> in 1945, i left to go to college. i left to go to atlanta to morehouse college where i finished in 1949 and started working in atlanta for four, five years on the "atlanta daily world," and then i went to chicago to "ebony" magazine. >> where you still are a writer? >> still a writer. >> at "ebony"? >> i'm still there.

i worked as editor, senior itor, and now i'm executive editor. >> when you were at morehouse college, what were they telling you about abraham lincoln? and that's an all-bla college. >> it's an all-black college. two things. it's very interesting, very interesting. the most enlightened professors said of course he didn't free the slaves. of course he was a ract. some orthodox professors said well, there were extenuating circumstances. >> these are black professors? >> some black professors, there were extenuating circumstances. the major point is, the point i make in this book, people in black institutions didn't talk about abraham lincoln that

much. as i said, one interesting point, and somebody needs to do a long essay on it. if somebody does not, i will do it. if i'm still here. white authors have written about 16,000 books and monographs on abraham lincoln. black authors have written in the last 135 years maybe two or three, maybe four. this is probably, possibly the first full-scale reassessment and study of abraham lincoln, but in the last 135 years, black authors have paid very little attention to abraham lincoln. three or four boo, maybe five, compared to 16,000 books and monographs. bazler -- and i quote him in my book, he had an essay in 1935

-- >> roy bazler? >> yes. he was astonished with that, why black intellectuals don't deal with lincoln more. he said perhaps they have not found a sign to emancipate them byto move, to follow. at any rate, the interesting thing is that predom napalitanoly black institutions, in black circles, apart from a few pieces of poetry here and there, abraham lincoln has never been the thing in black america that he has always been in white america, which suggests to me -- and this is speculation b i say it in the book, i surmise that black people know lincoln, have always known it, at a depth beneath words. at any rate, they have not felt it necessary. they have not felt a need or the interest to addre him the way white historians have addressed him. >> if you had had the

opportunity, what would you have said to martin luther king when he was standing on the steps of the lincoln memorial, giving his "i have a dream" speech in 1963? >> i would have said that you're absolutely right, when you said that you issued a check and it came back insufficient funds because the emancipation proclamation was precisely th. i would have said you're absolutely right to say that the real task now is to get together and write the emancipation that lincoln didn't write, becau as i say in this book, martin luther king jr. had a healthy dose of skepticism about what abham lincoln meant and what abraham lincoln said. and in his book "where do we from here?"

, he details most of the things i say in here, but says at the end there we extenuating circumstances, he believed he could detect some owth in lincoln. i have some problems with the growth, but we are together on the analysis. he was a racist, and king knew it, he said it, and fundamentally i agree with most of his analyses. now, if you can let me put one pin in this. this is painful. i've said it, and i keep saying it over and over, not only to white people, not only to white people. for the last 135 years, every medium of communication outside the medium we control, lincoln was the great savior, the great liberator, he freed you on january 1 out of the goodness of his heart. large numbers of black people have just worshipped lincoln. i mean, he's -- because they believe that he did what people

say he did. and it's painful to say to them and to my community and other communities heidn't do it. he didn't want to do it. he was a completely dierent man. the point i'm coming to, finally, if you let me go through this scenario, on january 1, a thursday, 1863, here in washington, slightly after 12:00, they had the new year's reception in the morning, and slightly after 12:00, secretary stewart and his son took the document, the emancipation proclamion to lincoln in the cabinet room, i think it was, and i d't -- let me tell you a story. lincoln took a steel-tipped pen, and he took the pen and he moved to the line where he was supposed to sn, and all of a sudden when he got to this

line, lincoln tells this story, when he got to this line, his hand started shaking so violently that he couldn't sign it, and he droed the pen. i thought well, what's going on here? so he took the pen again, steel-tipped pen, and he moved it to the place, and staed to sign it and his hand started shaking so violently that he couldn't sign it, so he dropped it again. and lincoln was ver superstitious. he stopped in awe. and then he said -- brain lincoln is talking -- then he said a very simple explanation came to me. i had been signing -- i had been shaking hands all that morning at the new year's reception, and my arm was virtually paralyzed. hence he said a very simple explanation for this phenomenon. i think thexplanation is too simple, but that's what he

said. at any rate, he finally was able to sign the document. now, my point. the poetry, the songs, the scholars, the major newspapers, the major museum people tell us that at that moment choirs start to sing over the alleghenies and over stone mountain in georgia, and black people started saying "free at last, free at last, thank god almighty i'm free at last." that's pretty -- it hurts me to say it's not true. it hurts me now to say it's not true, but any slave in georgia who said "free at last," surrounded by confederate troops on january 1, 1863, was immediately sent to heaven. any slave in alabama who said that. so i'm trying to say that this

poetry, i wish it were true, it is not true. virtually almost anything we have been told about abraham lincoln in the last 135 years is wrong and needs correcting or needs somebody to have a long dialogue on. >> when you hear that they are trying to raise about $125 million to buy -- to build a library to abraham lincoln in springfield, illinois, what's your reaction? >> i thi we need an equal amount of money, more money, in fact -- let me back up. i think we need to research lincoln's life. i think we need to know everything we can about him. my book complains that people don't know anything about lincoln, even 135 years later. i think we need to know that. i think also we need an equal amnt of money. we need more money dedicated to the task of studying the real

ees mans patriotors, of studying charles summer in and thaddeus stevens and wendell phillips. >> all white men. >> all white men. they tell me that these men were 100 years ahead of abraham lincoln in terms of their understanding of democracy and racial equality in this country. now, one of my complaints in that book is that -- and i'm coming back to white americans, few if any white americans know who lamon trumble was. he was a senator in lincoln's time. he had the traditional problems of many of the white men of the area at the time, but he was far more advanced in his understanding of what liberty required of him. he opposed the fugitive slave act in illinois.

at the time when abraham lincoln was back in the hunting of men, women, and children, he defeated abraham lincoln for the senate, and the reason he defeated lincoln for the senate is because lincoln was too conservative on the issue of slavery in illinois and in america, but the bottom line, l ymon trumble came to washington. he was the author of the first confiscation act which began the emancipation proclamation in august, 1861. he was the author of the second confiscati act, which was the most sweeping act of emancipation passed by congress, enacted during lincoln's time, more sweeping than the emancipation proclation. and he was one of the principal authors of the 13th amendment. 100 years ahead of lincoln. nobody in illinois knows lymon

trumble. i'm exaggerating. one or two people know h. we have had no major exhibits in illinois on him. we have had 100 exhibits on lincoln who didn't believe in equality, who did little or nothing to advance the abolitionist process. why isn't it the culture -- why isn't the culture structure teaching lymon trumble's name. >> as you know, almost every poll that is taken has abraham lincoln as number one. as you know, because you write about it in your book and you don't put this qualifier on it, that a lot of liberal american college professors think lincoln was the greatest. why? white college professors. >> white college professors. and almost all of the major history professors in this country. and findhat extraordinary. >> why? >> because until the capture of

atlanta and the nomination of general mcclelland on the democratic ticket la in864, until late 1864, almost all members of lincoln's party thought he was a disaster as a president, and most of them were looking for some alternative candidate. almost all members of washington -- of the washington power structure at that time said he liked -- he lacked will, he lacked resolution, he lacked vision, and that he was prolonging the war by his inadequacies. lymon trumble said he lacked the resolution needed in this task. his attorney general bates said he lacked will. others said at the time that he was simply a terrible leader. and yet 135 years later, almost all the scholars say he was the

greatest leader we have ever had in our country, perhaps in the world. >> why? >> because they have not read the record, i say. because there has been for 135 years one of the biggest attempts in all history to hide a man and a history and to make e ma entirely different from what he was. >> why? >> because lincoln is a mask. for certain deep-seated problems re blacks a whites, which they have resisted and refused deal with, particularly the problem of

slavery, the problem of emancipation and the problem of black freedom in this country. lincoln, far from being a leader, -- let me stop and deal with it. lincoln, far from being a leader, was -- everybody knows him, everybody. he was a man on the fence who denounced the extremists on both sides, who talked out of both sides of his mouth, and this is an ideal tat -- that appeals to many people. i say in the book that although people won't tell us who lincoln was, history knows lincoln. they know that he was a waffling, equivocating person. i quoted a person in one of the major papers just before the book was published who said that george bush and the other

presidential candidates reminded them of lincoln. why did they remind this columnist of lincoln? because he waffled. because he talked out of both sides of his mouth with different audiences. history knows abraham lincoln. it's my suggestion that many scholars are defending that image of leadership. >> what's the isolated, quote, school? >> the isolated quote school is the tendency of major biographers to quote -- take isolated quotes out of context and use them witho giving the context of the setting of the man. for example, they tell us -- and i won't name the historian whom i admire and respect on other grounds -- said that the -- the 1862 state of the union message -- we talked about the

last best hope of the earth -- was one of the greatest statements in the history of the world. he does not tell us that lincoln was asking congress to deport black people. so we get in the peoria speech, lincoln says, you know, i love the declaration of independence. one of the great documents of all time, one paragraph. two paragraphs later, he said now, i don't want you to misunderstand me. he's talking to 10,000 or 12,000 white people. i don't want you to misunderstand me. i'm not talking about equality. i'm not talking about making black people equal. i'm not talking about freeing black people in the south. but it's a great document in the abstract. you get this, and i -- i took a whole chapter because i knew i would have to do that. i took a whole chapter and detail the defenses that scholars built into their work. >> you talk about benjamin thomas.

and i know i have done so many shows here on abraham lincoln that more often than not, an author will say it's the single best volume, best one volume biography of abraham lincoln. number one, why do they say that? who was? and why did you spend a lot of time writing about him? >> thomas' one-volume work is readable, came at a time when people were groping for some new way to deal with lincoln. if memory serves, i think it came out sometime around 1952 or something, sometime around there. and it was just immediately elevated to the best one-volume treatment of lincoln available. i used it as an example, and i went down the list of all the things that thomas did not tell us.

>> >> let me read them so it would be easier for you. you said that lincoln doesn't tell us -- thomas doesn't tell us that lincoln used the "n" word. he doesn't tell us that lincoln loved "n" jokes. he doesn't tell us that lincoln voted for jim crow legislation in the legislature. he doesn't tell us that lincoln said there was a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people about black and white sex. he doesn't tell us that lincoln supported the illinois black laws. he doesn't tell us that president lincoln personally ordered union officers to return runaway slaves to slave masters. he doesn't tell us that president lincoln tried for nearly a year and a half to save slavery in the united states. >> all these things, and i say this is typical of major biographies on lincoln in the last 135 years. that the famous charleston quote is the stumbling block. as i say in the book, the best biographers will summarize the

charleston quote. >> and what is that and what was the reason for it? >> in the charleston quote on saturday, september 18, 1858, lincoln said to about 10,000 or 15,000 white people in the lincoln-douglas debate that i will say then that i'm not now, nor have i ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black race, that i'm not nor ever have been in favor of making voters of negros jurors of negros, nor of qualifying them to hold office, not to intermarry with white people and he goes on and on. a full quote in the end by saying he is in favor of white supremacy. now, this is a terrible quote and it's the sort of litmus test for lincoln by og raise ers. the best ones will summarize the quote and will make an excuse for him.

the major excuse, as you know from thomas and others is to say that dglas was pushing him and he had to say that to get elected. other people say well, he had to say that in order to get elected in 1858. but most biographers do not givehe full quote. they certainly don't get it in context, andhey certainly do not, as thomas does not, tell us that lincoln voted for jim crow laws in the illinois lg tour, voted for a white school system in illinois as a legislator, said on the platform that he supported the black laws, and lived in illinois and never said a word about an illinois law that made it a crime for black people to live in illinois. we don't get any of this in the traditional biographies. and my problem is beyond lincoln i raise the question,

and it's a question of dialogue, i always raise the question of scholarship. i say you can't divorce a man from his setting like that and write biography on it. i say if you don't tell us about the jim crow laws he supported and the fact that he supported the hunting of men, women, and children and the fugitive slave law, if you don't tell us these things, i think we have to re-evaluate what we're doing in scholarship. >> i mentioned earlier the abraham lincoln association which meets in springfield, the lincoln forum which ets up in gettysburg every year has speakers, and they have never invited you to speak. if they did, would you walk into that group and give the same thesis that you do in yr book? >> i would walk in that group and give the same thee sis, with one exception, one exception. i dot believe in lynching

parties. and if they want to arrange 15 people on a platform, and they say now you speak and now these 15 peoe are going to lynch you. i don't believe in that. but if they want me to make a speech, i will make it, but one scholar, one vote. the way they generally do it -- and that's another one of the techniques. they will ask -- there are 15, 20 people to come in and you speak and then 15 or 20 people will speak. i will speak, one scholar, one vote, and i will i would be delighted to speak, and i think we need this kind of dialogue. but, again, back to a small problem here, i did -- and you know i have been disrobed before, in february of 1968. i wrote a small say in "ebony" called "was abraham lincoln a white supremacist?"

explosions everywhere. people said the republic is in danger. it's much worse than this time. ok. then people say well, you know, he mes some good points. we ought to re-evaluate lincoln. a number of people said that. but the re-evaluation did not come -- that essay has been out there for some 32 years. no real response to it. one of the ways they -- the academic authorities respond to me is they put it as one of the major booksn 676 page -- the footnotes. not in the book. not deal with lincoln and racism, but they say in the footnotes, lerone bennett says this, way down in small, small type, and then they will go on. we still haven't had a dialogue on this in the country. and i -- without being provocative, i think it's important to the truth of white people and black people for us to know what was done and was not done and to certainly know

about the black and white men and women who tried to emancipate all of us. >> if steven a. douglas was elected president in 1860, what do you think would have happened, unlike what happened with abraham lincoln getting elected? for black people. >> the first case -- and'm answering your question. i think the abolitionists had driven the south mad and they were not going to take steven douglas. but that's my first answer. the second one is they would havead- i think he would have tried to create a compromise extending or modifying his earlier compromise, and i don't think it would have worked. i think it had gone beyond that point at that time, and i don't think that was any solution.

that the southerners would have approved o. -- approved of. i say in my book and i believe it's true -- wendell phillips said it first -- that fugitive slaves and abolitionists and the threat of insurrections haveriven southerners mad. they -- essence, they committed suicide. lincoln in his inaugural address said that he would have personally backed a 13th amendment which had already been passed which would have guaranteed slavery forever. in the united states of america. the south refused to accept it. another question in that area and i appreciate your question, i -- i -- i ask myself the question lincoln was a compromise candidate, again going back to leadership. he was not elected because he was a flaming anti-slavery advocate. he was elected because he was

less of a anti-slavery advocate than stewart and salmon chase. the question is what would have happened if stewart and chase had been elected president? my view is that emancipation would ha come sooner anin a better con text than it did under abraham lincoln, under both of them. i think you would have had pretty much the same thing. i think there would have been withdrawals. but i don't think chase and seward would have gone so far in apiecing the south and the border states. and i think -- this comes to my theory of leadership, which is real. if lincoln had not spent two years apiecing kentuy, if he had mobilized 400,000 black

soldiers and issued an emancipation order, given the soldiers freedom, i think the civil war would have been over two years, three years at most. and i will say again on this leadership issue, and then i'm through with it, i don't understand the historians who say his great leadership, if franklin delano roosevelt had conducted world war ii as disastrously as abraham lincoln conducted the civil war in the first two years, america would be a engineer man protectorate today. >> how many years have you been in chicago? >>h, about 47. >> how big is "ebony" magazine? >> the biggest black magazine in the world. about two million subscribers. about 10 million readers

overall every month. >> and this book was published by johnson publishing? right. >> john johnson. >> yes. >> did you try to get it published anywhere else? >> no, i did not. >> does johnson publish books all the time? >> no, he publishes books by authors, internal books by authors. primarily we publish several books outside, but primarily books by authors, people who work at johnson publishing company or who have worked at johnson publishing cny. >> has your book been reviewed by "the washington post," "the new york times," or "the wall street journal"? >> it has not to this date been reviewed by "the washington post," "the new york times." or some other journals we can name. it has been reviewed by a number of major journals in this country, and it has received, as i say, i think, enthusiastic reviews from radio people and television people. >> when did you first think about doing the book?

>> there is disagreement in my family about that. i say seven years. my wife says i have been doing it for 10 or 12 years. we split on 10 years, maybe. what i started to do -- as i mentioned, i did the essay in february, 1968. and it was not being circulated anywhere. a young historian called me from university of illinois in urbana and said i can't find this anywhere, it's not in the index. so based on the fact it was not being circulated, i said 10 or 12 years ago, seven years ago, i think i will create a book of essays and put the lincoln essays in it. i have a number of other essays i want to put in it. as i worked on it, i said, well, you know, as an author says, maybe it needs a little update. a year or two later, 300 or 400 pages, i say, well, it has to

be a book, so it evolved into that. les say 10 years, maybe seven or 12 years, but i have been working on it that time. and i say -- and i hope you will let me say immodestly, i worked on this book nights and weekends for 10 years or so after my day job. i couldn't do this at my day job. i work 14 hours or so at my day job, and then i would go home and i would work at night, and then i would work all weekend. people thought i was crazy, but i just -- i just did it year after year, and i did not receive -- i have no graduate assistance. books like these -- i had no graduate assistants. i didn't get a grant from a foundation. i did it 10 years on my own.

and people, you know, feel sorry for you, and people, of course, say you're crazy, but it's one of the most exciting 10 years i have spent, because what i had to do is to -- i had to learn how to see again. i had to create new con septs for trying to understand lincoln, because the dominant concepts would have led me to error. so all this time i s involved in trying to see again, learning how to see again, and then creating new concepts for containing the phenomenon that i think we need a new perspective on. >> how many copies did you print? >> i don't remember. i know we're in the second printing. >> was it 30,000? >> no, not that many, no.

>> what has been the reaction among black people to this? >> the reaction has been tremendous. it's 650 pages. foot notes. it's not the kind of book you expect people to walk down the streets reading, but i walk down the streets and black people say thank you for doing the book, thank you for this. and i have gotten more response on this book in the black community than i have ever gotten, and i have another book before the mayflower which is one of the widest circulated black history books ever, but the reonse to this has been electric, and i have been very humbled by it. >> this is a bit convoluted. let me try to walk through this. if white people, both -- you hear both republicans and democrats, liberals and conservatives, putting their arms around abraham lincoln, if they think he did a good thing

and they are supporting him because they thi he freed the slaves, what advantage is it to this discussion if in the d you're successful in pulling the rug out from under that? >> all right. i will answer that question a number of ways. it's a good question. i appreciate it. the first -- my first response, without getting up on a high horse, my first response always is that i think the truth is its own defense and it's absolutely necessary. my second response is, to whites and blacks, there is this warm comfort in the symbol who gives out freedom on january 1, 1863. my second response is that you can't lie your way to freedom. you can't lie your way to freedom. you can't do it.

you can't lie your way to a rainbow nation. my third response, and i say it in the book, people who say that are too late. i won't name a presidential candidate by his name, but the people who say that in general know who abraham lincoln is. they know he was not john brown. theynow he was not wendell phillips. they know he was not a major advocate of liberation. they know in general -- this is what most people know about lincoln, that he did it reluctantly. he did it to save the union. that's -- that's the lincoln that these people worship. what is that saying? that you don't fight for freedom if it causes problems. they know the lincoln they are worshipping. ey don want to know john brown. they don't want to know wendell

phillips. they don't even want to know lymon trumble. and i'm saying that we ought to teach young white children wendell phillips' name, who said -- and 94 years before king, 133 years before mandela that he wanted to create a rainbow nation composed of the learned and the ignorant, the old and the young, the black and the white, paying an, christian, jew -- pagan, christian, jew, all in one great procession, marching toward a rainbow land. he said that 100 years ago. that ought to be taught if we're gog to overcome the madness in this country. going back to abigail adams, who really were in favor of the liberation of black people, we

need to know black people like frederick douglass, etc. >> again, my facts may not be right on the money, but a couple of weeks ago, president inton std in front of the anderson cottage out here at the old soldier's home, $750,000 to repair it. i think he mentioned it was in this cottage that abraham lincoln wrote a lot of the emancipation proclamation, implying that's very positive, very good. kind of connect that to, i want to ask you whether is bill clinton, as i said several years ago, the first black american president? >> give me two seconds. i hoped that we would come to this. the firspoint -- the dedication of this cottage in the summer -- and i read newspapers all across this country. almost all of them wrong, almost all of them totally wrong.

the big american newspaper, the paper of record said that it was in the soldiers' home that abraham lincoln drafd the emancipation proclamation. he did no such thing. did no such thing. another major american newspaper -- and just let me read this. i brought it to read. i won't name the newspaper. said it was at the cotge in 1862 that lincoln wrote the nal draft of the encipation proclamation. issued january 1, 1863, the proclamation freed slaves and conservative territory controlled by union forces. now, there are about five sentences here, and there are six major errors in just these five sentences. this is a major american newspaper. in the first place, what he -- he did not write the second draft of the emancipation prostate cancer mitigation -- proclamation at the cottage. what he wrote there -- he made notes there for the preliminary proclamation.

now, this is 2000. american media don't know the difference between the preliminary proclamation and the emancipation proclamation? the other point was that document was issue on september 22, 1862. the emancipation proclamation was drafted in the white house on december 31, 1862. but i call your attention to this sentee in a major newspaper which said the proclamation freed slaves in confederate territory controlled by union forces. it did the precise opposite. lincoln freedlaves in confederate territory, controlled by confederate troops. lt them in slavery in confederate territory controlled by union forces >> what about the other half of that, bill clinton? >> i think his appointment policy has been extraordinary

and it's an indication of -- of what we should expect from a president and points in the direction that we ought to go in terms of trying to create a rainbow nation. lincoln was not going in that direction at all, and, again, here is an indication of a direction we need to gon in order to create the rainbow nation that was dreamed, that has never been lived. but, now, he was part of that symbol of endorsing abraham lincoln, the whole standing for the cottage? that doesn't bother you? i mean, is there a -- all these presidents, both sides, all say great things about abraham lincoln, but you're basically saying it's all a lie? >> i'm saying fact, fact, fact. all the major newspapers in america, i can name them, said

the draft of the emancipation proclamation, he did not do it, and th iicates, one, to me -- and i come back to your question -- that the misinterpretation and the misunderstanding of lincoln on this issue has reached a level of a national scandal. when all of the newspapers put out this misinformation. my second point, it doesn't bother me, even scholars it doesn't bother me. 500,000 ph.d.'s swearing that lincoln wrote the emancipation proclamation in that thing will not change the fact that he did not do it. the facts are against the theory, and it's the duty of all americans to begin now to deal with the facts. >> our guest has been lerone bennett jr. this is what the book looks like, "forced into

spin is was very interesting. shirley after he went to my training and was blackmailed by my instructor there, changing my test scores come arresting me constantly and looking out for -- i turned in my instructor and that instructor ended up turning around an outing me. i was removed from my job. it took away my ability to access computers. actually worked at the chaplain's office during this time and secretary gates came out with his new policy that third-party outings were not allowed anymore and that kind of stop the process against me

personally but during this process i got so frustrated with don't asked out tell that i decided to turn around and help create and build a network where we could start to do networking together and collectively voice our concerns to the military and to the public. one of the people that can should be treated to the book are out serve members send we started to connect soldiers around the world in two this day where we have 4700 members across the globe that are connected that have the support that are no longer alone better able to meet on a regular basis and just have the support right now even posted "don't ask don't tell" arrow but i guess the two big reasons i agreed to do this project was i think it's really important to give the courage that there are people in the military now. i remember reading the book when i was in the air force about a