"And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves wit…"

"I did more for the Russian serf in giving him land as well as personal liberty, than America did for the negro slave …"

"In another January on New Year's Day in 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. When he put pen t…"

"The historical significance of the Proclamation is not so much that it enacted the emancipation of people of African …"

"There is something for which Lincoln should be applauded, I believe. And it is that he was shrewd enough to know that…"

"Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the fi…"

"I have given the subject of arming the negro my hearty support. This, with the emancipation of the negro, is the heav…"

"As a man whose roots go deeply into Southern soil I know how agonizing racial feelings are. I know how difficult it i…"

"Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color …"

"Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a p…"