John David Smith, Charles Stone Distinguished Professor of History, will present “Abraham Lincoln, Emancipation and the U.S. Colored Troops” at 2 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 26, as part of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library’s Emancipation Proclamation programs. This talk will be in main library’s Francis Auditorium (320 N. Tryon St.).
In the lecture, Smith will frame Lincoln’s evolution on emancipation within congressional actions and will explain why the president seemed halting and vacillating in his decision to allow black enlistment. He also will examine the development of Lincoln’s emancipation project, its implementation and the government’s recruitment and deployment of black troops. Finally, the lecture will explore the bigger meaning and implications of Lincoln’s shift from opposing to supporting the emancipation and arming of blacks; the influence of black agency in that process; Lincoln’s place in the historical memory of emancipation and black enlistment; and how the experience changed not only the war, but America and Lincoln himself.