Dr. Michael Burlingame, Chancellor Naomi Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies, presented a preview of his 2016 Lincoln Legacy Lecture to his master class and the UIS community on April 20th. Dr. Burlingame framed the problem as follows:
“The Reconstruction period after the Civil War saw a valiant attempt to make the promise implicit in the Emancipation a living reality. How and why did it fail in the nineteenth century, but laid the ground work for the Civil Rights Movement of the twentieth century?”