mr. douglass: mr. lincoln, it was a sacred effort. mr. lincoln: i'm glad you liked it. mr. douglass: and that was the last time i saw him. mr. holzer: six weeks later, lincoln fell victim to an assassin. an assassin who had been in the the capital on his inauguration day and was restrained by a policeman. 11 years later, on the anniversary of the murder, douglass rose to deliver the principal address of the unveiling of the statue of lincoln as emancipator. while the sculpture of the white leader lifting a kneeling slave seems clinically incorrect by modern standards, it was in fact commissioned and entirely funded by free people of color. douglass has enjoyed a decade to think about lincoln the man, the president, and the liberator, he once regarded as slow, but sure. and this is what he says to the white crowd that day. mr. douglass: the race to which we belong, we are not the special object of his consideration. i concede to you, my white fellow citizens, that you and yours were the objects of his deepest affection. you are the children of abraham lincoln. we are, at best

mr. lincoln that frederick douglass is at the door. in less than half a minute, i was invited into the east room. i could not have been more than 10 feet away from him when mr. lincoln saw me. his countenance lit up and he said, in a voice that was heard all around, lincoln: clear comes my friend douglass. i saw you in the crowd today listening to my address. there is no man whose opinion i value more than yours. what did you think of my speech? douglass: mr. lincoln, i cannot stop here to talk to you. there are thousands waiting to shake your hand. lincoln: what did you think of it? douglass: mr. lincoln, it was a sacred effort. lincoln: i'm glad you liked it. douglass: and that was the last time i saw him. holzer: six weeks later, lincoln fell victim to an assassin. an assassin who had been in the capital on his audit -- inauguration day and was restrained by a policeman. 11 years later, on the anniversary of the murder, douglas rose to deliver the principal address of the unveiling of the statue of lincoln as emancipator. while the s

mr. matthews: the term african-american is new but he knew people who had come from slave backgrounds like frederick douglass. did he have any sense of on ceiling black potential -- unsealing black potential? mr. wilson: he doesn't really talk about this, you have to intuit it from his attitudes and so forth but he is professionally closed mouth. all of his friends talk about it and not even his friends know his deepest thoughts. i do not have to tell chris matthews that when a politician opens his mouth, nothing but the truth from his heart comes out. [laughter] mr. matthews: dr. king, do we know he was a socialist or duty of ideology? mr. carson: he was not political because the goals he had in mind -- one of the things i invite you to do is in the latest book, "martin's dream," i have a chapter about the love letters he wrote to coretta when they were dating in 1952 and it just did the question is useful for list, yes he is so from us, the and an anti-communist socialists but definitely -- yes -- is he a socialist, yes he is a socialist, a christian socialist, an anti-communist socialists, but definitely

frederick douglass was an exception. he said to mr. lincoln afterwards that was a sacred effort. in the century and a half since his death, we have made unequal progress in achieving the kind of america abraham lincoln believed we could be. a full century passed before african-americans in the south were guaranteed the most basic right of citizenship the right to vote. if president lincoln were here today, i think he would be happy to see our union has survived. i think he would be pleased and astonished to see that america had elected and re-elected another lanky lawyer from illinois and an african-american to be our president. i also think he would challenge us when our government of the people by the people, for the people is under threat from a cabal of secret special interest money that can buy elections i think lincoln would tell us we have unfinished work to do. when we negligent to bind up the wounds of war of even one soldier returning from war negligent to care for widows and orphans, lincoln would remind us we have unfinished work to do. and when the right to vote is u

douglass. although the two met on a handful of occasions, they never actor stephen laying and norm lewis take on the roles of lincoln and douglas, and harold holzer moderates. mr. holzer is also the chair of the centennial lincoln foundation. the metropolitan museum of art posted this event. [applause] mr. holzer: in their entire eventful lives, be met only -- they met face-to-face