If Wright Wants To Teach and Preach, He Should “Worship Lincoln” Not Attack People Almost Two Centuries Away

By John E. Carey
Peace and Freedom

Living and working on a busy city street front in a culturally and racially diverse area, we’ve heard just about every possible opininion on the Reverend Wright imbroglio.  You might be surprised to hear that many first generation people ”of color” are embarassed by the Good Reverend’s hateful, negative views of America.

A man from Africa told me yesterday: “We love it here.  We are free here.  We are not in a civil war here.  I drove a taxi at home and at one point it became an ambulance to help people in war.  Strangers died in my arms.  I cried like they were my own children.”

He continued: “Black Americans who have been here for generations cry only for themselves.  They must stop to cry.  They should celebrate Lincoln.  In fact, they should worship Lincoln.”

We discussed his education and background.  His name is Shaka.

My African American friend, now a citizen of these United States, is named for the greatest Zulu chieftain of all time: Shaka (1787 - 1828), (also spelled Tshaka, Tchaka or Chaka ).  Shaka united the Zulu sub-tribes into the beginnings of a nation and commanded a large portion of Southern Africa between the Phongolo and Mzimkhulu rivers. His military prowess and destructiveness are widely know in oral African history. He has been called a military genius — and is both honored and feared as a warrior.

My friend Shaka took a great interest in Abraham Lincoln and he compares his culture’s Shaka to our Lincoln in some ways.  “Both were statesmen.  Both saw a clear and unalterable path.  Both wanted fairness and honor among men.  And neither shied away from war though neither really wanted war.”

Only known drawing of Shaka standing
with the long throwing assegai and the
heavy shield in 1824 - four years before his death.
.

My friend Shaka said that all Americans need to be more aware of history.  “Knowing history would make you cast this man Wright aside in a moment.  He should not attack so easily.  He should worship Abraham Lincoln.”

Abraham Lincoln.  Worshiped by
Black people during the 1860s
and beyond.  Rev. Wright has not
yet mentioned Lincoln or the
American Civil War.
***********

Shaka finished with this: “The man Wright makes no mention of Lincoln or the war that ended slavery: the American Civil War.  I know little about it but I have seen some pictures.  Men sacrificed a lot for others they knew nothing about.  I have no hate for anyone in America.  America almost destroyed itself so that my family could have a good, safe and lawful home.  I do not cry for myself.  I have a family to feed and work to do.”
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Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address 

      

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Above: dead soldiers at Marye’s Heights, Fredericksburg, Virginia, killed during the Battle of Chancellorsville, May 1863.

 

 

 

 

Above: A copy of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Booker T. Washington, as a nine year old boy, wrote:
“As the great day drew nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual. It was bolder, had more ring, and lasted later into the night. Most of the verses of the plantation songs had some reference to freedom…. Some man who seemed to be a stranger (a United States officer, I presume) made a little speech and then read a rather long paper—the Emancipation Proclamation, I think. After the reading we were told that we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased. My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all meant, that this was the day for which she had been so long praying, but fearing that she would never live to see.”

Emancipation Proclamation

By the President of the United States of America
A PROCLAMATION

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States, and each of the states, and the people thereof, in which states that relation is, or may be suspended or disturbed.

That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all slave-states, so called, the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States, and which states [and] may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, immediate, or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of African descent [with the consent] upon this continent, or elsewhere, [with the previously obtained consent of the governments existing there elsewhere,] will be continued.

That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state, or designated part of a state, the people whereof thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States [including the military and naval authority thereof] will, during the continuance in office of the present incumbents, recognize [and maintain the freedom of] such persons, as being free, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

That the executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States, and parts of states, if any, in which the people thereof respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any state, or the people thereof shall, on that day be, in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto, at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such state shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such state, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.

That attention is hereby called to an Act of Congress entitled “An Act to make an additional Article of War” Approved March 13, 1862, and which act is in the words and figure following:

“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. that hereafter the following shall be promulgated as an additional article of war for the government of the Army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and observed as such:

Article-. All officers or persons in the military or naval services of the United States are prohibited from employing any of the forces under their respective commands for the purpose of returning fugitive from service or labor, who may have escaped from any persons to whom such service or labor is claimed to be due and any officer who shall be found guilty by a court martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service.

SEC.2. And be it further enacted, that this act shall take effect from and after its passage.”

Also to the ninth and tenth sections of an act entitled “An Act to suppress Insurrection, to punish Treason and Rebellion, to seize and confiscate property of rebels, and for other purposes,” approved July 17, 1862, and which sections are:

“SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, that all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them and coming under the control of the government of the United States; and all slaves of such persons found [or] being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves.

“SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escaping into any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, from any other State, shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except for crime, or some offence against the laws, unless the person claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that the person to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is alleged to be due is his lawful owner, and has not borne arms against the United States in the present rebellion, nor in any way given aid and comfort thereto; and no person engaged in the military or naval service of the United States shall, under any pretence whatever, assume to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to the service or labor of any other person, or surrender up any such person to the claimant, on pain of being dismissed from the service.”

And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in the military and naval service of the United States to observe, obey, and enforce, within their respective spheres of service, the act and sections above recited.

And the executive will [in due time] [at the next session of congress] recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion, shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United States, and their respective states, and people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves.

A.L.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this twenty second day of September, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

Abraham Lincoln [signature]

 

By the President:

William H. Seward

Secretary of State

Other immigrants to America gave us similar perspectives.  Many are bewildered at Mr. Wright’s hate.

 

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