Lincoln’s Handwitten Draft of the Emancipation Proclamation Is Coming to Harlem
By Felicia R. Lee
Read the article at www.NYTimes.com
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem will be the first stop for the New York State Museum’s traveling exhibition of the only surviving draft of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in Abraham Lincoln’s handwriting.
On display Sept. 21 through Sept. 24, “The First Step to Freedom: Abraham Lincoln’s Preliminary Proclamation,” will include the draft and the official version of the preliminary document, issued on Sept. 22, 1862. The proclamation changed the course of history by freeing tens of thousands of slaves and laying the foundation for the end of slavery.
The two documents will be displayed along with the manuscript of a Sept. 12, 1962, speech by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the New York State Civil War Centennial Commission in New York City. Dr. King’s speech — typewritten with handwritten notes throughout — argued that the descendants of slaves were still awaiting civil rights and that government could be a powerful force for change.
The draft copy is “such a handsome, powerful and organic document,” Mark Schaming, director of the New York State Museum said on Wednesday. “It’s on this beautiful old paper and he’s thinking while he’s writing.”
The draft shows, for example, that Lincoln toyed with the idea of compensating slaveholders — a plan he had considered earlier. Lincoln’s fingerprint can even been seen in the ink, Mr. Schaming said.
Lincoln issued the preliminary document to signal his intention to order the freeing of slaves in any Confederate state that did not return to Union control by Jan. 1, 1863 — the day the official Emancipation Proclamation was signed and issued. A rare copy of the Emancipation Proclamation sold for $2.085 million at auction in New York City in June.
The exhibition’s three documents are accompanied by free-standing pylons that provide context for what the documents mean historically and now.
Timed tickets to the Schomburg exhibition must be reserved, but are free, first come, first served, at www.schomburgcenter.eventbrite.com or by calling (212) 491-2207. The center is at 515 Lenox Avenue, at 135th Street.
The New York State Legislature bought the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in 1865 from Gerrit Smith, a well-known abolitionist. The state will show off its jewel as the exhibition tours New York State this month,with stops that include the Oncenter in Syracuse, the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, the Plattsburgh State Art Center, the Rochester Museum and Science Center and the New York State Museum in Albany.