(Cazenovia, Peterboro NY – Oct. 2015) The Saturday Oct. 24 afternoon program for the Abraham Lincoln: The Great Emancipator weekend event will encourage public participation and provide a ballot for participants to vote on the sixteenth president as to whether he was an abolitionist – or not.
At 2 p.m. at the Catherine Cummings Theatre (16 Lincklaen St. in Cazenovia) Milton C. Sernett PhD will lead discussion for The Emancipation of Abraham Lincoln: Head, Heart, and the American Memory. Sernett will introduce two Lincoln scholars who have researched and published on Lincoln and his family.
Joseph Fornieri PhD will talk about his publication on Lincoln’s leadership, and Jason Emerson will follow with a presentation on his research on the Lincoln family and domestic issues as they relate to Lincoln’s leadership. At the conclusion of the afternoon session Dr. Sernett will facilitate audience participation with the scholars. As participants leave they will receive a ballot in exchange for a feedback form. The result of the ballot vote -which will be posted on the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum website- will determine if Lincoln should be included in the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum (NAHOF) in Peterboro.
Dr. Sernett states, “In a speech delivered at Corinthian Hall, Rochester, New York, on March 25, 1862, Frederick Douglass rejoiced in the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and said of President Abraham Lincoln, ‘A blind man can see where the president’s heart is.’ The rail splitter from Illinois has been enshrined in the American memory as ‘the Great Emancipator,’ yet many historians today argue that he was no abolitionist in spite of deeply held antislavery views. The Lincoln program brings together noted Lincoln scholars to examine the evolution of Lincoln’s views on slavery and the genius of his political leadership at a time of great national peril.”
Sernett is professor emeritus of African American Studies and History and Adjunct Professor of Religion at Syracuse University is a founder and a member of the Cabinet of Freedom for the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, and provides many resources and programs on 19th C. abolition. His principal areas of teaching and research have been African American religious history, the American South, the abolition movement, the Underground Railroad, and American social reform movements. Sernett was a Research Fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University, in 1988-89. In 1994-95 he was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Free University, Berlin, Germany. He has served as a scholarly advisor to the National Underground Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. He continues to teach an online Underground Railroad course and a course on the history of American abolitionism during his retirement. He has published eight books and numerous scholarly essays. Among his books are abolition’s Axe: Beriah Green, Oneida Institute, and the Black Freedom Struggle; North Star Country: Upstate New York and the Crusade for African American Freedom, and Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory, & Freedom. He has given presentations on the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism, and Harriet Tubman on many occasions for the Scholar’s program of the New York Council for the Humanities. Sernett has also served as a consultant to numerous organizations interested in documenting local and regional history pertaining to the Underground Railroad and Abolitionism.
Jason Emerson is an independent historian and journalist living in Cazenovia. He is currently the editor of the Cazenovia Republican newspaper. He is the author or editor of multiple books about Abraham Lincoln and his family, has published numerous articles and book reviews in both scholarly and popular publications, and appeared on Book TV, American History TV and The History Channel. He has worked as a National Park Service park ranger at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site, Gettysburg National Military Park, and the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (the Arch) in St. Louis; a costumed interpreter at the Genesee Country Museum in Mumford, NY, a professional journalist, and a freelance writer.
Emerson’s historical research and writing focus on the life and times of Lincoln and his family. Among Emerson’s publications: Lincoln’s Son for President , The Madness of Mary Lincoln, The Dark Days of Abraham Lincoln’s Widow, As Revealed by Her Own Letters, Lincoln’s Lover: Mary Lincoln in Poetry, a collection of poetry written by, for, and about Mary Todd Lincoln. Mary Lincoln’s Insanity Case: A Documentary History is a compilation of every primary source on the subject, including 138 letters by participants, 46 contemporary newspaper articles and editorials, 6 legal documents the Bellevue Place Sanitarium daily patient progress report during Mary Lincoln’s incarceration, as well as multiple reminiscences, interviews, an diaries of people who knew Mary Lincoln or were involved in the case, including one recollection by a member of the 1875 insanity trial jury. Giant in the Shadows: The Life of Robert T. Lincoln, is the definitive biography of the Lincoln’s oldest son, a great man in his own right who has been ignored, misunderstood, and often maligned by historians and history. Emerson’s biography is the first book published on Robert Lincoln in more than forty years.
Joseph R. Fornieri PhD. is professor of political science and Director of the Center for Law, Statesmanship, and Liberty, at the Rochester Institute of Technology He teaches a wide array of classes including American politics, political leadership, American political thought, political theory, politics through fiction, and constitutional rights and liberties. Fornieri has received the RIT Provost’s Award for outstanding teaching for junior faculty and the Eisenhart Award for outstanding teaching for tenured faculty. In 2009, he was awarded a Fulbright to teach First Amendment and American Political Thought at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. He is the author of Abraham Lincoln’s Political Faith, an acclaimed scholarly work that explores Lincoln’s religion and politics as well as the author or editor of several other books on Abraham Lincoln’s political thought and statesmanship. Fornieri served as a member of the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, 1809-2009 and is an acting Board Member of the Lincoln Forum.
Fornieri’s publication Abraham Lincoln, Philosopher Statesman explores Lincoln’s political brilliance. Allen C. Guelzo describes the work as wonderfully concise work on the politics of Lincoln, and praises Fornieri for performing to perfection the task of laying out the lines of Lincoln’ politics, not only for his time but also in terms of the seven classical characteristics that make for “greatness of soul.” James Oakes further applauds Fornieri for bringing the insights of political philosophy to bear on the study of Abraham Lincoln, and, in so doing, “enriches our understanding of what made the sixteenth president not only a great politician but also a great statesman.” Fornieri rejects “the cynical notion that a seasoned political operative cannot also be a principled idealist.”
In commemoration of the end of the Civil War, the death of Lincoln, and the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum (NAHOF) has suspended its 2015 induction ceremonies to address the matter of President Lincoln as “The Great Emancipator.” Several programs will provide opportunity for the public to study Lincoln as an abolitionist. The “Lincoln Weekend” will begin at the Catherine Cummings Theatre in Cazenovia at 7 p.m. Friday, October 23 with A Concert for President Lincoln by the Excelsior Cornet Band. At 7 p.m. on Saturday October 24 Harold Holzer, President of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation, will present Abraham Lincoln and the Abolition Press at the Cummings Theatre.
The Great Emancipator event and the Created Equal Film and Discussion series will both culminate on Sunday, Oct. 25 in Peterboro at 9 a.m. with Abolition Coffee and a guided tour of the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark (5304 Oxbow Road, Peterboro) with Gerrit Smith biographer Norman K. Dann PhD.
At 10 a.m. an Abolition Breakfast reception for Dorothy Riester’s sculpture titled Young Lincoln will be held at the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum to welcome the sculpture loan from the Stone Quarry Art Park, followed directly by a guided tour of the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum (5255 Pleasant Valley Road, Peterboro) with NAHOF Vice-President Tim McLaughlin PhD. at 10:30.
At 11:30 a.m. the three part series of The Abolitionists, which is part of the Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle film series will begin with Part I of The Abolitionists – along with Abolition Morning Tea. Part II begins at 1 p.m. with Abolition Lunch, and Part III begins at 2:30 p.m. with Abolition Dessert. The concluding session at 4 p.m. examines Where are We as Abolitionists Today?
Lincoln red white and blue admission tickets cost a Lincoln bill for adults and for ages 5 – 12 a Lincoln coin.
Sunday, Oct. 25 sessions are free.