Second, in my life, the place I was exposed to the most racism- both by whites and blacks- was New York and New Jersey. I went to high school in NY (I was raised in the South until I was 15) and saw more voluntary segregation on the school campus than I ever saw in Florida. I think the sham that the North was benevolent and caring toward slaves and former slaves did much to foster the racial tensions we see today. Lincoln himself said, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.” (see: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/P?mal:16:./temp/~ammem_JWGm::)

You know, this was all going on in the “Bible Belt” South. Over half of all whites in Alabama were Southern Baptists. Yet, the Federal Government had to come in and destroy Jim Crow. It would have been great if Southern Baptists had helped out a little.

We have a lot to answer for.

It’s no wonder we are still dealing with racial tensions in America, specifically with Black and White America. It hasn’t been that long since we stopped this atrocity. Actually, some would say we are still dealing with the death throws of that system. It’s been my experience that the South is still full of the sentiment of keeping blacks uneducated and separate from whites, in an unconscious/semi-conscious intent. Who hasn’t dealt with racism in a Southern Church? Only those outside the South. I dealt with it so much in Kentucky it made my skin crawl.

And, Kentucky was a border state. I’ll have to tell you some stories about what deacons said to me at various times.

It is only with younger generations, further removed from the crimes of our past and better educated by the world with the advent of technology that we have a chance to grow beyond this mindset. As long as the South was cloistered, this mindset was passed on from generation to generation. No amount of civil rights legislation or activism will ever do what the internet can do in the life of one young mind to broaden it to the world.

And, you are most certainly correct in your statement. I was aware that my statement was not historically perfect, but it did state what the average American believes the Emancipation Proclamation to have accomplished. Obviously, you are above average ;^) Actually, the 13th Amendment did not entirely abolish slavery, either. It reads:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

In theory, the only violation of that amendment in the convict lease agreements was the lack of being “duly convicted” since that process was a sham. The legal actions were actually brought as violations of the peonage statutes which prohibited the very type of involuntary servitude being practiced.

Regarding the statement, “following Lincoln’s Proclamation that granted freedom to all slaves in the US” … Lincoln only freed the slaves in the South - those states that were border states and where slavery was legal did not have their slaves set free.

From the US Government Archives website: The Emancipation Proclamation

“Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory.” [emphasis mine]

The proclamation, while seminal and helpful, was also a political maneuver to try and get slaves to rise up in the South and fight “guerrilla warfare” on the Union’s behalf. As such, it was a poor plan for freedom, since actual freedom wasn’t the goal.

This could only have added to the cultural confusion - the “mixed message” if you will - from the government to people. I’m sure it played a part in the negative feelings toward blacks in the south and the seething resentment of whites against blacks there. Being from Mississippi - I was born there and all my family are from there - I note that it was and still is imprinted on society.

“Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory.” [emphasis mine]

Obviously, this feeds the theory that slavery was not abolished in the 19th century. It clearly was not abolished if the state in which you lived allowed for slavery but you had not seceded from the union, which added to the cultural confusion of what to do with slaves.