Lincoln's Birthday

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

A sentiment first expressed by Frederick Dogulas at the dedication of the Freedmen's Monument in 1876.

Very true. But I think it was Du Bois's widely read article that rekindled the idea in black circles (while the cultural fad in the 1900-1930 period of glamorizing antebellum Southern culture was doing it in white circles) after several decades of black hagiography (see, for example, Booker T. Washington).