Earlier this year, Dr. Jacob Friefeld joined us to discuss the Homestead Act of 1862 as part of Abraham Lincoln’s legacy. He now returns to discuss the largely unknown story of Black Americans who migrated from the South to the Great Plains after Civil War to claim land through the Homestead Act. Some created Black homesteader communities, while others homesteaded alone. All sought a place where they could rise by their own talents and toil, unencumbered by Black codes, repression, and violence. In the words of one Black homesteader descendant, they found “a place they could experience real freedom,” though in a racist society that freedom could never be complete. Their quest foreshadowed the epic movement of Black people out of the South known as the Great Migration.

Dr. Jacob Friefeld is the Director of the Center for Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield. His first book , Homesteading the Plains: Toward a New History, challenges the scholarly consensus about the Homestead Act of 1862. His new book, The First Migrants: How Black Homesteaders’ Quest for Land and Freedom Heralded America’s Great Migration, tells the epic story of Black Americans homesteading in the Great Plains after the Civil War.

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When we talk about the Lincoln story, we often stop at Abraham Lincoln’s 1865 assassination, but three more generations followed Abraham and Mary. Join Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum Lincoln Historian Christian McWhirter for a glimpse into the lives of President Lincoln’s descendants and how they dealt with living under his enormous shadow.

Dr. Christian McWhirter is the Lincoln Historian at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Museum and author of Battle Hymns: The Power and Popularity of Music in the Civil War. He previously served as Editor of the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association and as an Assistant Editor for The Papers of Abraham Lincoln project. His writings on Lincoln, popular music, and the Civil War have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, and Washington Post. His most recent publication is a Civil War Monitor article on what Lincoln’s taste in music tells us about his worldview.

This program will livestream on Looking for Lincoln's Facebook page and YouTube Channel. The event is FREE. Please do not click on any links that take you to pay page. Our free Facebook events will never ask you for a credit card. If you have trouble finding the event, check the main news feed on the page, and do not click on links in the comments.