A Historical Timeline of Lincoln's Relationship with African-Americans
1837
Lincoln made his first anti-slavery speech.
1841
Lincoln began practicing law with William Herndon. As a Springfield lawyer, Lincoln had a number of black clients. This was a very unusual practice for an attorney in central Illinois.
William Florville was a Springfield native who was among a small number of blacks Lincoln legally represented. He was also Lincoln’s personal barber and Florville's son eventually became the first African-American to attend Knox College.
1854
Lincoln was instrumental in the suffrage movement (right to vote) among African-Americans in Louisiana. He met with a delegation of African-Americans and presented them with a petition that appealed for the right to vote.
1857
Spoke out against the Dred Scott decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that slaves and their descendants were not citizens; this spurred Lincoln into political action.
Lincoln personally mitigated the release of John Shelby, an African-American Springfield resident who was wrongly detained as an escaped slave in Louisiana. He paid $69.30 for his discharge and safe return to Springfield.
1858
At the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Lincoln gave his famous "House Divided" speech, during which he talked about the future of the country being in jeopardy if half of its citizen were free and the other slaves.
1861
Lincoln became the 16th U.S. President.
William Johnson, an African-American from Springfield, served as a valet for Lincoln and traveled with him to Washington, D.C. Lincoln successfully secured a messenger job for Johnson at the U.S. Treasury, and he personally requested that Johnson travel with him to Gettysburg.
Elizabeth Keckley, a successful African-American seamstress, met the Lincoln First Family at the inauguration. She eventually became a confidant and good friend of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln during the Lincoln White House years.
1862
Lincoln drafted the Emancipation Proclamation.
Lincoln met with a delegation of African-Americans from Washington, D.C. to discuss the American Colonization Society (ACS) movement, an emancipation movement to relocate blacks to West Africa (Liberia), the Caribbean and/or Central America. An early supporter of the movement, Lincoln would eventually become connected to the movement's most vocal proponents, including Joseph Jenkins Roberts, an African-American who eventually became the first president of Liberia.
1863
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation to abolish slavery, effective Jan. 1.
Lincoln first met famed African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Lincoln and Douglass maintained a fruitful relationship, anchored by their strong beliefs about the emancipation of African-Americans.
1864
A week prior to his re-election, African-American abolitionist and women's activist Sojourner Truth met with Abraham Lincoln for the first time, at her request. During the meeting, Lincoln signed Truth's autograph album.
1865
Lincoln's final meeting with Frederick Douglass was at a White House public reception following his second inaugural address: No African-American had ever attended this reception, where in his delight, Lincoln addressed Douglass as a "friend". After Lincoln's death, Mary Todd sent Lincoln's walking stick to Douglass, honoring her husband's wish.