Forever Free

In memory of Abraham Lincoln, assassinated this day in 1865, I visited the self-contained exhibit Forever Free - Abraham Lincoln's Journey to Emancipation on view at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, main building of the DC Public Library.

Created by the Huntington Library and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History this traveling exhibit uses free-standing panels divided into six thematic sections to describe in his own words what we know of Lincoln's attitude towards to slavery and how he politically worked to end it. You walk around it and read the story which is densely illustrated with autograph writings, photographs, political cartoons and maps (yay maps!) as well as background art showing the context of the time in which the events took place. With a timeline running horizontally across quite a bit of information is packed onto its panels. It does, however, gloss over the fact that the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the states then in rebellion; reading closely you are reminded that it took the 13th Amendment to the Constitution to abolish slavery throughout the rest of the Union.

Sponsored by the American Library Association Public Programs Office, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission this exhibit and its duplicates are traveling around the country this year of Lincoln's bicentennial, being displayed in libraries throughout the country. MAD thought it was appropriate to see it at a place named for Dr. King who many years later took up the challenge left by the legacy of slavery.

Rest in peace, Abraham and Martin.