Not to sound too contrary here but sounds like both you fine fellers have learnt up the revised and sanitized version of the story... If either of you would like some readin' material I can suggest a good book that might just give you another glimpse... The name of the book is "Lincoln" but unfortunately its packed away in abox so I can't give you the writer's name...

And "emancipation" while sounding very noble meant "now yer free, you got nuthin', we ain't givin' ya nuthin' so fir most former slaves living in the South it meant another hundred years of poverty and abuse and things didn't start changing until the 50's...

Last year I had the priveldge of spending a little time with Sam Carr, who has played drums with various blues players over the years. Sam is in his early 70's now and he and his wife live in a two room shack 'bout 1/2 miles off Highway 61 in the middle of the Mississippi Delta...

Well, Sam's was showin' us some photographs and telling stories 'bout the way thing used to be when he was a young man and he related a story 'bout workin' the door at a juke joint... Now workin' the door meant he was the pistol man... He said that's why he started playin' the drums 'cause he didn't like pistol duty... Well, seems that it weren't unusual fir a fight to break out on a Saturday night and someone shot another someone... "Sometimes the law would come and sometimes they wouldn't", Sam said, "An' if they did come, they'd take the shooter in but come Monday mornin' the 'boss man" come an' get him out an' have him back on the tractor 'er in the fields..."

Yeah, "emancipation" means different things to different folks. That's the point I have been tryin' to make here. What Lincoln did, while on paper sounded very couargous, if takin' historically was nuthin' but a political trick... Had he done it in '61, 'er 62 it might have meant more... But waitin' until the CSA was ion the ropes seemed a little Bush-ish to me... Plus, if there was such an interest in the well being of black folks then why weren't these folks provided with anything with which to start a real life... Here we are some 140 some years later and we still can't talk about repairations....

No, you guys can keep Lincoln yer hero's list... I 'll take a pass...

Bobert