ABRAHAM LINCOLN

[Written by: Gabriel Scott]

It is said that a few United States Presidents had Black blood in them. We’re talking decades before Barack Obama was elected into office. One of those Presidents was shockingly, Abraham Lincoln. We know Lincoln also for his nicknames, Honest Abe and The Great Emancipator. Evidence tells that Lincoln was said to be the illegitimate son of a Negro by his mother, Nancy Hanks. In his campaign while running for President, Lincoln was often referred to as a Negro by his opponents. He was even depicted as a Negro; given the nickname Abraham Africanus the First. What gave more power to this was that Lincoln’s hair was more Negroid than White, along with his skin complexion. One of Lincoln’s closest companions and law partner, William Herndon, said that Lincoln had “dark skin.” Herndon also stated that Lincoln did not care to dwell on his ethnicity and that he would steer away from talking about it to people. Lincoln was battling something mentally and emotionally for years according to his friends and colleagues. Many times did Lincoln seem very sad, depressed and melancholy. Was his true identity bothering him? In his famous document, The Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln makes a statement that focuses on him not really knowing specifically if he wanted slavery to end or not. According to Zofia Stone's, Abraham Lincoln; A Biography, Lincoln described himself as "Black" in 1838, and in 1859, he described himself as "dark".