OCTOBER 2, 2012
\nby Shannice Singletary \u201914, Contributing Writer<\/p>\n
On Wednesday night, Furman alum and Clemson history professor Vernon Burton spoke on the significance of the Emancipation Proclamation and its significance and impact on southern history.<\/p>\n
Burton\u2019s lecture officially kicked off the 2012 Freedom Stories Fall Lecture Series, which celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and Furman\u2019s partnership with the Upcountry History Museum.<\/p>\n
Through much of the lecture Burton chose to examine the proclamation\u2019s author, President Abraham Lincoln.<\/p>\n
\u201cLincoln will always be remembered for his interpretation of liberty and freedom,\u201d he stated to a small crowd of avid listeners, \u201cBut that was only a part of his greatest contribution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burton painted Lincoln not only as a hero, but as a passionate and flawed man who revolutionized the notion of personal freedom. In passing the Emancipation Proclamation, Burton said Lincoln redrew the boundaries of freedom and recast America\u2019s purpose.<\/p>\n
Using his epic narrative The Age Of Lincoln<\/em> as a focal point, Burton spoke on the concept of slavery as a \u2018original sin\u2019 left behind by our early forefathers who regarded it as a necessary evil for the sake of progress. From there he examined the evolution of President Lincoln\u2019s beliefs of what truly constituted \u2018freedom\u2019 and how his deep rooted aversion to slavery led to his growing recognition of African Americans as being worthy of equality.<\/p>\n With the realization that true freedom had strikingly different definitions for slaves and southern plantation owners, Lincoln was forced to create his own definition. \u00a0In doing so, Burton said Lincoln forever changed the notion of freedom.<\/p>\n In a time in when all sides claimed to be fighting for God\u2019s will, Burton spoke on how Lincoln\u2019s upbringing\u00a0 shaped his beliefs and empowered him to lead a civil war that put an entire country\u2019s ideals at stake. And for the decades that followed, Burton spoke on how this notion of Lincoln\u2019s freedom would be continuously tested.<\/p>\n As far as acknowledging the horrors of slavery and its aftermath-and the racial tension that still exists today, Burton only had this to say:<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a part of our history. We have to live with it and we need to deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" OCTOBER 2, 2012 On Wednesday night, Furman alum and Clemson history professor Vernon Burton spoke on the significance of the Emancipation Proclamation and its significance and impact on southern history. Burton\u2019s lecture officially kicked off the 2012 Freedom Stories Fall Lecture Series, which celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and Furman\u2019s partnership with the Upcountry History Museum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-history"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nby Shannice Singletary \u201914, Contributing Writer<\/p>\n