Interesting how the lines of history intersect. Lincoln--NAACP--Springfield.

[Critters2]

Along with today being the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, it's the 100th anniversary of the founding of the NAACP. The NAACP was founded in direct response to the Springfield Race Riot, which took place in Springfield, IL--yes, Lincoln's home--in August of 1908. A lesson, I think, about how easily we can be turned toward violence and scapegoating. The same city which proudly hailed Lincoln as a source of hometown pride could just a few decades later become a maelstrom of racial violence. And from that violence, came an organization which moved this nation away from legally sanctioned segregation...and toward the election of this nation's first African American president.

"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

[ZombieNixon]

1. Also, in August 2008, a century after the aforementioned race riots,

the party that, in the time of Lincoln, had been the party of slaveholders, nominated an African-American man to be president. The same man declared his candidacy for president on February 10 (two days before Lincoln's birthday) in Springfield, IL.

[Critters2]

2. Yep. Like I say, it's all very interesting. nt