McLean County Lincoln Bicentennial observance to begin with November 8 event

BLOOMINGTON - The first McLean County observance of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial will feature something the 16th President loved to do - read.

To kick off "McLean County Reads," world-renowned scholar Dr. Edna Greene Medford will discuss Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation on Thursday, November 8 at 7 p.m. at Wayman A.M.E. Church, 803 W. Olive, Bloomington. The event is free and open to the public, and is co-sponsored by the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission of McLean County and the David Davis Mansion Foundation. A specialist on 19th century African-American History, Medford co-authored the book The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views and wrote "Lincoln and the Constitutional Dilemma of Emancipation" for the Organization of American Historians Magazine of History. She was interviewed on C-SPAN's Courts program in March 2007 concerning the Dred Scott Case. Medford is on the faculty at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

The "McLean County Reads" initiative encourages area residents to read and discuss books about Lincoln and slavery in order to better understand the nation's preoccupation with slavery and racism that led ultimately to Lincoln's election, the Civil War, and his role as President. The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics by James Oakes provides insight into this problem by exploring the relationships, personal and ideological, between Lincoln and the nation's most outstanding black leader in the nineteenth century, Frederick Douglass. The Bicentennial Commission is encouraging McLean County libraries and book clubs to read and discuss this book during 2007-2008.

The David Davis Mansion State Historic Site in Bloomington is collaborating with the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission of McLean County to sponsor a series of programs and exhibits highlighting the Lincoln legacy in McLean County. For more information, visit www.mclincoln.org or www.daviddavismansion.org.