"A president who governed a divided country has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization and political crisis. Abraham Lincoln was president when implacable secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions inextricably bound up with money, power, race, identity, and faith. He was hated and hailed, excoriated and revered. In Lincoln we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations. At once familiar...

Eric Foner gives us the history of Lincoln and the end of slavery in America. Foner begins with Lincoln's youth in Indiana and Illinois and follows the trajectory of his career across an increasingly tense and shifting political terrain from Illinois to Washington, D.C. Although "naturally anti-slavery" for as long as he can remember, Lincoln scrupulously holds to the position that the Constitution protects the institution in the original slave states....

"A Flag for Juneteenth depicts a close-knit community of enslaved African Americans on a plantation in Texas, the day before the announcement is to be made that all enslaved people are free. Young Huldah, who is preparing to celebrate her tenth birthday, can't possibly anticipate how much her life will change that Juneteenth morning. The story follows Huldah and her community as they process the news of their freedom and celebrate together by creating...

"On June 19, 1865--more than two years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation--the enslaved people of Texas first learned of their freedom. That day became a day of remembrance and celebration that changed and grew from year to year. Learn about the events that led to emancipation and why it took so long for the enslaved people in Texas to hear the news. The first Juneteenth began as "Jubilee Day," where families celebrated and learned...

"...This book offers readers a unique look at the events that led to the Emancipation Proclamation. Filled with little-known facts and fascinating details, it includes excerpts from historical sources, archival images, and new research that debunks myths about the Emancipation Proclamation and its causes."--Amazon.com.

"Learn more about Juneteenth, a holiday that celebrates the end of chattel slavery in the United States in this Step 3 History Reader"--

Learn about how freedom came to the slaves in June 1865.

Young Benjamin Holmes, a slave in Charleston who has taught himself to read, reads Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation to his fellow slaves in prison.

The larger-than-life image Abraham Lincoln projects across the screen of American history owes much to his role as the Great Emancipator during the Civil War. Yet this noble aspect of Lincoln's identity is precisely the dimension that some historians have cast into doubt. Redeeming the Great Emancipator enumerates Lincoln's anti-slavery credentials, showing that a deeply held belief in the God-given rights of all people steeled the president...

Even before shots were fired at Fort Sumter, slaves recognized that their bondage was at the root of the war, and they began running to the Union army. By the war's end, nearly half a million had taken refuge behind Union lines in improvised "contraband camps". These were crowded and dangerous places, with conditions approaching those of a humanitarian crisis, yet families and individuals took unimaginable risks to reach them, and they became the...