African-American Civil War Memorial and Museum

I made it to the African-American Civil War Memorial. This time, after traveling a few more blocks on U Street NW, an historical district in Washington, D.C. for African-American and Civil War History, I found the African-American Civil War Museum. I concluded from this visit that raced whites, both Democrats and Republicans have always been divided and fighting among themselves. And that it important to remember that African-Americans survival depends on understanding we have contributed to the survival of America and the betterment of America.

Hari Jones, Assistant Director of the African-American Civil War Museum delighted in sharing the history of the Civil War, and African-Americans contribution. I was told about a Garland White, after I told Mr. Jones I was from Indiana. White played an instrumental role in the liberation of African-Americans. A woman upon seeing, White on the street, wanted to know who was the man. because she believed he looked a lot like her son. Indeed it was her son, a son who had fought to liberate his own mother. "Accompanying the 28th USCT was Rev. Garland White who was born in Richmond as a slave and later escaped to the North where he recruited African Americans for the Union army. After addressing a crowd on the edge of the city an older woman approached and said, “This is your mother, Garland, whom you are talking to, who has spent twenty years of grief about her son” (p. 127)." Nelson Lankford. _Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital.

In 1865, Garland H. White, black chaplain of the 28th U.S. Colored Infantry, wrote: "The historian pen cannot fail to locate us somewhere among the good and the great, who have fought and bled upon the alter of their country." Over 100 years later, the "historian pen" has finally begun to examine the story and significance of the United States Colored Troops.

I asked about the emanicipation proclamation. Jones quickly shares a compelling story about the emancipation proclamation. The parchment issued as an executive order was to release African-Americans from bondage to save the Union. The parchment was granting African-Americans the legitimacy to fight for their freedom. When Lincoln threaten to use this executive order to enlist person of colors, it was not well received, and others questioned whether or not he had the authority to do so under the Constitution. "Arguing against the black enlistment bill, one Democratic legislator declared: "'This is a government of white men, made by white men for white men, to be administered, protected, defended, and maintained by white men.'"

In joining the northern battle, African-Americans soldiers were aware that they were liberating themselves from the southern bonds of eternal damnation-slavery. In other words, African-Americans were "the great emancipator" from slavery, commissioned by Abraham Lincoln when he lifted the ban against persons of African descent from joining the military.
"Reacting sharply to the outrageous and offensive claims against his policy, an acerbic and unmoved Lincoln argued that peace would eventually come to the Union, and when it did: "'Then, there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind to this great consummation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they have strove to hinder it.'"

The words used in the inscription located near the display of the emancipation document, suggests a well-kept secret about African-Americans contributions during the Civil War: "The proclamation was drawn up first in July 1862, but because the North had fared badly in the War, Lincoln was advised not to issue the Proclamation until the Union Army finally won a battle. This occurred at Antietam in Sharpsburg, Maryland on September 17, 1862( Battle of Antietam also called Battle of Sharpburg). Five Days later, on September 22, 1862 the proclamation ending slavery in the United States was issued by President Abraham Lincoln. It was finalized on January 1862" .

Jones, suggest that students not view Glory the movie as a telling of African-Americans contributions to the winning of the Civil War, but to read the African-American soldiers' letters, then write and discuss what they read. If the telling of the story about the liberating of over 300 by Harriet Tubman is such a compelling story, youth will swell with pride in understanding, that many freed men and fugitives, over 200,000 threaten with re-enslavement or death, went from the north and reentered the south willing to fight to free over four million slaves, as a wow moment.

"The Confederate Congress responded quickly, and on May 1, 1863 passed a formal declaration that black men bearing arms would be viewed as insurrectionary slaves subject to the laws of the states where they were captured. At the very least, captured African American soldiers faced a return to the shackles of bondage."

The truth liberators of our people come from the people themselves. "Massachusetts Republican Governor John A. Andrew. Andrew had long and ardently advocated the use of blacks in the military -fully believing that they could, and would fight if given the opportunity. It was no surprise then, when he, along with the earnest support of Frederick Douglass - raised the nation's first post-Emancipation Proclamation black unit, the 54th Massachusetts Regiment."