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From Lincoln to Obama: 200th Birthday Celebration of Lincoln; Tentative Compromise Reached on Stimulus Plan
Aired February 12, 2009 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, HOST: And welcome back, everybody. At the top of the hour we're talking about two presidents, separated by centuries, both rising to the nation's highest office from obscurity, both presiding over a country at war, both facing enormous challenges.
Welcome back to our daylong special event, "From Lincoln to Obama," on this the 200th birthday celebration of Abraham Lincoln.
Now, today President Obama will pay homage to a predecessor, a man who he has often said inspires him, taught me, and whose legacy, he believes, is more alive today than it was before.
Two idols, two icons, two symbols. Presidents fit the bill. But behind the images are two men, and it's the men we want to talk about.
Joining us today is Jonathan Holloway. He's professor of history, African-American studies and American studies at Yale University. Nice to see you. Thanks so much.
JONATHAN HOLLOWAY, PROFESSOR, YALE UNIVERSITY: Nice to see you, as well.
O'BRIEN: You know what's so interesting to me? You hear the story of Lincoln a lot, but many people tell the story of Lincoln and leave out Frederick Douglass. Do you think you can tell the story of President Abraham Lincoln fully without -- without having Douglass be part of that?
HOLLOWAY: I don't think you can tell American history without Douglass being a central part of it.
In 1852, he goes to -- he's invited by his abolitionist friends to come speak on the Fourth of July, one of the great markers of any great history of United States. And he refuses. And he says, "I'll come on July 5." They want him to talk about liberty and freedom. He says to ask someone who had been a slave in a land of slaves to talk about freedom is cruel.
And so with Lincoln you get -- excuse me, with Douglass you understand the very tight-knit bonds between freedom and slavery. And this is what defines the United States.
O'BRIEN: But he physically embodied, in some ways, the grappling of the issue of slavery that the president -- you know, that arc of dealing with this issue. Because from everything you read, President Lincoln -- I mean, I'll read you a smidge from the Douglass debates, years before he came president.
HOLLOWAY: OK.
O'BRIEN: And he says very clearly at the fourth debate, "I am not, nor have ever been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not, and have never been, in favor of making voters or jurors out of Negroes."
And then he goes on with "I have not..."
HOLLOWAY: Yes, he's very clear.
O'BRIEN: "... and have never been." I mean, he's clear.
HOLLOWAY: Yes.
O'BRIEN: It is not, for him, about the equality of black people and white people. He really wants to preserve the union, and whatever it takes to do that is really all that matters to him. How does Frederick Douglass change him?
HOLLOWAY: It's almost a miracle in some ways. I mean, you need to think about Lincoln as a powerful pragmatist. You've already suggested this. He'll do anything to save the union.
He was not a friend or an admirer of slavery, but if this is the peace we have to make to save the union, we'll do this. Douglass, however, was a moralist, and understood from personal experiences how horrible slavery was to everybody.
O'BRIEN: He had been a slave.
HOLLOWAY: That's right.
O'BRIEN: He escaped in Maryland. Right?
HOLLOWAY: That's right. And slavery ruined everybody, in Douglass' opinion. And he -- Douglass had a very low opinion of Lincoln because -- at first, because -- because of Lincoln's pragmatism.
Over time, however, one can see that Douglass begins to see the pragmatic -- or the successes of Lincoln's pragmatic approaches, and Lincoln, I mean, faced with the atrocities of the war. And you can't say -- there's no other word to think about -- to use for thinking about the Civil War. I think he begins to see the power...
O'BRIEN: Of the morality...
HOLLOWAY: ... of the morality.
O'BRIEN: ... of the argument.
HOLLOWAY: That's right. O'BRIEN: At some point -- and it's true; it's almost like the two men start here and they kind of work their way in a little bit to each other's way of thinking. So you have this former slave...
HOLLOWAY: Right.
O'BRIEN: ... this escaped slave -- I mean, if he had gone back to Maryland he could have been captured, as property -- sitting down and meeting with the president of the United States. And they met three times.
HOLLOWAY: That's right.
O'BRIEN: And each time -- these were important meetings. What -- how unusual would that be? I mean, I can't even -- that's like -- what is that equivalent of today?
HOLLOWAY: I don't -- gosh.
O'BRIEN: Me walking up to the White House, knocking on the -- hey!
HOLLOWAY: I can't imagine an equivalent -- an equivalency. I mean, this is -- even years before they met, Stephen Douglas in the Douglas-Lincoln debates was race-baiting Lincoln for his friend, Fred Douglass. I mean, over and over again.
O'BRIEN: And he goes -- he answers back...
HOLLOWAY: They hadn't even met yet.
O'BRIEN: ... right. "He is not a friend. He is not a friend."
HOLLOWAY: Yes, hadn't met. So it's amazing, given the fact that Douglass -- Frederick Douglass is used as a tool to help try to turn voters away from Abraham Lincoln, that eventually they'd be meeting in that one place together, and that Lincoln would welcome him in. And Frederick Douglass recounted how "Lincoln welcomed me" -- this is paraphrasing now -- "as he would any other gentleman." And just that, "welcoming me as any other gentleman," was more than many people could stomach.
O'BRIEN: Sometimes to me, at least -- and I'm so, so not a Lincoln scholar, though I've been cramming a lot lately -- you get this sense of conflict. I mean, he'll talk early on, well before he's considering a run for the presidency, about the horrors of slavery.
HOLLOWAY: Right.
O'BRIEN: I mean, he clearly personally thought slavery was wrong.
HOLLOWAY: Yes.
O'BRIEN: And yet has no real interest in black equality. Ship everybody back to Africa; we have solved the problem. HOLLOWAY: That's right.
O'BRIEN: The union can stay together; all is good. And I'm curious to know how he was able to kind of bridge that giant gulf between, you know, those two issues.
HOLLOWAY: Well, I mean, I think war and crisis forced people to make -- have profound reconsiderations. The Civil War is the test of Lincoln's faith more than anything else. And I think as the war turned in such a way that there were literal challenges to staffing a union army.
O'BRIEN: Suddenly, it's OK for blacks to -- to join the military. I mean...
HOLLOWAY: Yes.
O'BRIEN: ... you talk about the pragmatist.
HOLLOWAY: That's right.
O'BRIEN: That's a very practical decision.
HOLLOWAY: That's right.
O'BRIEN: "We need to win, ergo I'm going to reconsider my position at the beginning of the war."
HOLLOWAY: They lose everything. They lose everything without -- without an increased number of bodies on the line.
O'BRIEN: And at the beginning of the war when people were -- when blacks would volunteer, they'd say, "No, thank you."
HOLLOWAY: That's right.
O'BRIEN: By the end of the war, not so much.
HOLLOWAY: That's right.
O'BRIEN: You know, do you feel passionate about Lincoln? Because, you know, we had Sam Waterston here, who -- who -- people who talked about Lincoln who study Lincoln sort of end up loving Lincoln.
HOLLOWAY: Right. Right.
O'BRIEN: Why?
HOLLOWAY: Well, I mean I think they love him, because they see something very human about him. He's a deeply flawed individual. If -- for those of us who think that slavery was a horrible thing and wanted to act -- would have wanted him to act against it, he wasn't for a very long time.
And yet he comes about and makes bold gestures -- more than gestures -- bold changes to the way this country would actually turn out. That requires a lot of a person. So that part...
O'BRIEN: At that time.
HOLLOWAY: At that time. It's really hard to process. And -- and he had fought all these horrible battles, I mean, political battles. And he's sent off thousands of people to their death, which was the way he's thinking about it.
And at the moment when triumph seems around the corner, the war is going to be won, he's assassinated. He's a tragic figure.
And he also has shaped the debate -- and for historians, I mean, he shaped the contours of the debates about American citizenship, about the power of the federal government versus the power of the states. The kinds of things he's working with get mapped out into debates for the next hundred-some-odd years.
O'BRIEN: When people talk about Barack Obama, they talk about how, you know, only his story. In fact, he has said, certainly in his speech is "only my story could happen in America..."
HOLLOWAY: Sure.
O'BRIEN: "... with a man of a son of an immigrant from Kenya," and blahdy, blahdy, blah. He's told that story a lot.
And yet, really, it was Abraham Lincoln was kind of the American story first. You know, impoverished, and that in America you could rise just by virtue of your own hard work. I mean, that's why he was opposed to slavery, because it wasn't getting the benefit of your own work.
HOLLOWAY: That's right. That's right.
O'BRIEN: It wasn't the morality of it, in a way.
HOLLOWAY: I mean, you asked me about, you know, people get excited about Lincoln. I get excited about Douglass, Frederick Douglass. So I see in him the perfect American story, just as much as you can see it in Lincoln, as well. I mean, not just rising out of poverty, rising out of being a slave. I mean, the denial of even the opportunity to be poor.
O'BRIEN: It does -- you know, reading all the history about Lincoln does make you think, well, how come no one's really done a big memorial to Frederick Douglass? I mean, if you could pick a guy who has pushed the issue.
HOLLOWAY: Right.
O'BRIEN: In some clearly, sometimes -- in very unpleasant ways in his conversations with Abraham Lincoln, he is a true American hero, too.
HOLLOWAY: Oh, he really is. There's no doubt about it. And there are memorials around there. O'BRIEN: No, no, I meant right on the Mall.
HOLLOWAY: No, the Mall's a tricky place.
O'BRIEN: Yes, the Mall is a tricky place. Jonathan, thanks. We're going to ask you to stick around with us...
HOLLOWAY: Sure.
O'BRIEN: ... if you wouldn't mind at all.
I want to take you back to Springfield, Illinois, which is the state where President Lincoln cut his political teeth. Kyra Phillips has been there for us this morning. It's also a state, of course, where President Obama found his political voice. Let's get right back to Kyra.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Soledad. Actually, and as you can see, our White House correspondent, Ed Henry, joining us. That's because the president of the United States is going to be giving a speech here tonight.
ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right.
PHILLIPS: We're going to talk about that in a minute, but I want to have a little fun, if you don't mind.
HENRY: Surprisingly.
PHILLIPS: Exactly.
HENRY: Kyra Phillips have fun?
PHILLIPS: I'll try. Here we are at the White House. All right. Let's go back in time. Let's say you were part of the press corps. What would you want to ask Abraham Lincoln?
HENRY: I think I'd want to ask him whether the "team of rivals" concept really panned out. You know, there have been books written about it many, many years later. Now Barack Obama is trying to emulate it a bit.
And there's questions whether Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and all these people around the cabinet table are really going to work together. And while Doris Kearns Goodwin's book suggests that it did work out well, a lot of historians in recent months have said, "Well, there was a lot of -- there was a lot of division. It didn't necessarily help them govern."
And we haven't really seen the foreign policy team have a chance to operate yet, because it's been all about the economy, and rightly so. But over the next few months, as we start talking more about Afghanistan, troop pullouts in Iraq, it is going to be very interesting to team these team of rivals, so-called, work together or not.
And so I'd love to ask President Lincoln whether he thought it worked or if he had any regrets about it.
PHILLIPS: All right. Which leads me to the next question here.
HENRY: All right.
PHILLIPS: Let's go to the White House. Come along with us here. Does this look like the front of the White House in any way, by chance?
HENRY: It resembles it a little bit. I see a lot of thing that look similar to even Abraham Lincoln around here. I see a lot of people with beards.
PHILLIPS: I know. We have a lot of impersonators.
All right. How about this? Let's come over to Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass. We heard Soledad talking a lot about Frederick Douglass and the role -- or the relationship that he and Abraham Lincoln had. As a matter of fact, I had a chance to visit his house in Washington, D.C., where he had an original picture of Abraham Lincoln hanging in his parlor there. It's still there. It's pretty neat. So we know a lot about the relationship.
What would you ask Frederick Douglass?
HENRY: I want to ask him, how long do you think it will take before an African-American is going to be president of the United States? Because in the 1800s, could they have imagined that it would have only taken 140 years or so? Or would they have thought it would have taken a lot longer?
There have been a lot of stories recently about how Robert F. Kennedy in the '60s suggested it would be around 40 years, maybe. And it turned out to be right. But would they have imagined it, that it could have happened? Because when you think about Barack Obama coming to Springfield tonight, how remarkable it is.
PHILLIPS: Amazing, looking -- and I wonder, too. I mean, there's so much talk about the fact that Lincoln freed the slaves for military purposes, not necessarily for social justice. That's -- I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall and really gotten into that issue about social justice versus military strategy.
HENRY: Yes, and what was really his thinking behind the Emancipation Proclamation? How long it took him to really come to his decision, who was advising against, who was advising for.
I mean, we talk about the decision making that goes on now with the stimulus bill, and we think it's interesting. I mean, that was so profound. And to try to get inside Abraham Lincoln's head or Frederick Douglass' head, would just be unbelievable.
PHILLIPS: That would be a time to be a reporter. How about Sojourner Truth? What would you want to ask her?
HENRY: I think the same question. But I would think, you know, how did she have the courage to stand up then even though it was so difficult? I mean, we sort of take it for granted now about people who were trying to end slavery. She had been a slave herself, you know. And we sort of take it for granted how, when people stood up in the 1800s, how difficult that really was.
Even in the 1950s, the 1960s, how difficult it was for people to actually stand up for justice. And we kind of take it for granted.
PHILLIPS: You know, it's interesting, because Abraham Lincoln's law partner said to him when he made the "house divided" speech, "Oh, that was really courageous, but, boy, were you politically incorrect."
HENRY: Yes.
PHILLIPS: He took a lot of heat, too, for standing up.
HENRY: Absolutely. And it's interesting, because President Obama now talks so much about getting inspiration from President Lincoln, but not just about bringing -- trying to bring the country together.
But I think in Anderson Cooper's interview, he said it's the humility of Lincoln that really has had the biggest impact on him. So it will be interesting to see how that plays out over the next four years.
PHILLIPS: And finally, Soledad, of course, the -- Ed and I both decided the ultimate scoop would be getting an exclusive interview here with John Wilkes Booth. Boy, we'd have a lot of questions for him.
HENRY: Why did you do it? What's the reason?
PHILLIPS: Right.
HENRY: You know, just last night President Obama was at Ford's Theater. They've spent 18 months redoing it. And I can't wait to see it myself. It's now open again. It's been closed for 18 months.
But figuring out exactly why he did it and how he jumped down, unbelievable.
PHILLIPS: Ed Henry, White House correspondent, there we go. Going back in time, Soledad. It would have been a fascinating era for all of us to be a part of, to ask about those questions with regard to war, with race and all the policies that Barack Obama talks so much about from Abraham Lincoln's time.
O'BRIEN: Two hundred years later, it's kind of cool to talk about it even today.
And you know, what's interesting about John Wilkes Booth. I was talking to a historian yesterday who was trying to explain to me how famous John Wilkes Booth was. He said it is like rolling up into one person all the top actors of your day. It wasn't some anonymous, crazed person who shot President Lincoln. It was a famous, well-known actor. And he said, you know, when you start thinking of it in those terms today, it really brings some clarity to it.
Kyra, thanks.
Ed Henry, of course, thanks as well.
I want to bring in David Gergen. As we all know, David Gergen has been an advisor to many presidents: Nixon and Ford and Reagan and Clinton. And he joins us now.
Nice to see you, David. Thank you.
We also have Professor Holloway from Yale University back, as well, so that we can continue talking about some of the issues that we have raised throughout the morning and afternoon.
I'm curious, David, though. Here's a man who has been the subject of 14,000 books. And yet, you know, people still argue over this "was he the great emancipator, was he the reluctant emancipator?" How come there's so much indecision, in a way, on who he really was?
DAVID GERGEN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, 14,000 books is remarkable. I think there are more books written about Lincoln in the English language than about any other individual other than Jesus Christ. So he's right up there in the pantheon.
And inevitably, when one person has as -- had such an extraordinary legacy, as Lincoln did, there are going to be controversies about aspects of that. And there has been, as Professor Holloway said.
There was -- there was a lot of argument. Frederick Douglass had a very divided view of Lincoln. He was very ambivalent about Lincoln for a long time. He thought he moved way too slowly. Frederick Douglass is one who thought he should have moved much, much more quickly on the Emancipation Proclamation and that it should have been much more universal. After all, the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to those slave states -- and there were four -- that remained part of the union. It only applied to the southern states.
So there was a lot that Douglass and others like him found to be -- that Lincoln was too slow, whereas Lincoln's defenders would say he had an extraordinary sense of timing, that if he moved too fast with the Emancipation Proclamation, if it had come six months earlier it would have failed; if it had come six months later it would have failed. He choose it just right.
So there's a lot of controversy even today about Lincoln's meaning. But I think the overall impact of Lincoln, in fact, particularly because of his assassination, he turned to be -- out to be the Christ figure in the story of democracy.
O'BRIEN: The focus, it always seems, when you read Lincoln's own words, was not spreading slavery, that that was really...
GERGEN: Right. O'BRIEN: ... not "I want to eradicate this horrible state stain on the country but we're going to stop it here and not move it there," which I think is where people sort of read that paradox into it.
Lerone Bennett, a historian, said you can't defend Lincoln without defending slavery. Professor Holloway, do you think that that's true? I mean, that's -- that's a little bit, I think, over- the-top statement.
HOLLOWAY: Right, right.
O'BRIEN: Do you think it is true, though?
HOLLOWAY: I actually don't think it's true. I understand Lerone Bennett has -- is part of a school of sort of progressive radical scholars who revisited Lincoln's legacy, as he's been revisited every decade.
O'BRIEN: Fourteen thousand books. That's what I said.
HOLLOWAY: And -- and has a very aggressive interpretation of Lincoln's age-specific racism, I guess, is the way I would put it. Lincoln did not have what we call progressive views about how wonderful blacks were and certainly tossed around words that we would all consider, some, even hate speech today.
But I think we have to keep in mind the national tragedy. Hundreds of thousands of people are dying. It's -- it's not to say that Lincoln couldn't have acted faster or shouldn't have acted faster. I would have liked for him to do it, as well. Frederick Douglass wanted him to do it, as well.
But it's a question of how do you keep a coalition together? I mean soldiers coming down from Vermont to fight down in South Carolina were not fighting the war, at first, to free the slaves. They're fighting to keep the union together.
O'BRIEN: Let me ask you a question, David, about the connections with Barack Obama. Because there certainly is a huge P.R. value in saying, "Boy, I love Lincoln, and I'm all about Lincoln." And then you have people who say they're both tall and gangly and lawyers, you know.
But what do you genuinely think is the true connection between Barack Obama -- you know, the more powerful, maybe more thoughtful connection between Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln, or is there not one?
GERGEN: I think there are several, but let me make a quick one, and then a more important one.
The quick one is that Lincoln -- as Professor Holloway would know so well -- faced exactly what Obama does, and that is that politics is the art of the possible. And you sometimes can't do all the things you would like to do as quickly as you would like to do them, because the system simply will not allow you to do that. And I think within that context, Lincoln moved as rapidly as he thought possible to -- toward emancipation.
But I think the bigger connection, the deeper connection, is this: that Lincoln on his way to Washington from Springfield, on his way to taking the oath of office, stopped in Philadelphia. And he said that all of the thoughts, all of the political sentiments he had, were rooted in the Declaration of Independence. And it's the second paragraph of the declaration, the moving paragraph that "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." That was at the heart of what Abraham Lincoln believed.
And as Gary Wells has written, I think, very persuasively, that was at the heart of what his -- he expanded our notion of what it was to be -- what America was all about, that freedom also included, very importantly, equality of opportunity.
And I would -- I would argue that I think fundamental to Barack Obama is a belief in the declaration, that same section of the declaration, and his sense of what America is about. And I think -- I think the ultimate moral challenge he's going to face is whether he and his administration can bring us closer to realizing that ideal than we have in recent years, when there's been spreading inequality, deepening inequality.
O'BRIEN: Certainly big obstacles. Absolutely. David Gergen and Professor Holloway, I'm going to ask you both to stick around and hang out with me for a couple hours while we continue our special coverage. We're going to have much more on Abraham Lincoln and his impact on race relations today just ahead.
First I want to send you down to CNN headquarters in Atlanta. That's where Fredricka Whitfield is standing by with a look at some of the headlines.
Hey, Fred. Good afternoon.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello to you, Soledad.
And hello, everyone.
All right. Here's a question for you: when is the last time a bad economic stat was down and a good stat was up all in the same day?
Today we learned first-time claims for jobless benefits declined last week from a high, sky-high, of 631,000 to 623,000. It's still huge and more than analysts actually expected.
But here's the good news. Some Americans are shopping again. Retail sales jumped one full percent last month, having fallen for six straight months before that. Analysts had forecast a seventh drop.
For the fourth straight day, President Obama is on the road, or soon will be. Today, he visits the Caterpillar heavy equipment factory in East Peoria, Illinois. Yesterday in Virginia, Mr. Obama said Caterpillar would scale back its layoff plans if his stimulus plan passed Congress. And that brings us to CNN's Brianna Keilar. Now that the House and Senate negotiators have reached a $789 billion compromise, what's next, Brianna?
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, next it is a vote in the House. That's going to be tomorrow.
And let's just recap what is in this bill. A big part of it is tax cuts and something that most Americans are going to get: $400 for the individual, $800 for families. And then there's a couple other tax credits that got pared down, but they're still there. Up to $8,000 for first home -- for first-time home buyers, and also a tax credit for people who buy new cars. They can deduct that sales tax of their purchase.
That said, not everyone is happy. Of course, Republicans aren't on board, but also House Democrats who weren't able to get as much spending as they wanted, especially on education, because Senate Republicans, those three who signed on, kept the price tag on that down: $54 billion for education spending, not enough for some house Democrats.
It's one of the reasons why we're not seeing a vote today in the House. We're going to see it tomorrow, because a number of House Democrats today behind closed doors with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said they want to see this bill. They want to go over it. And right now that language isn't even public at this point. They want to take the time to read that as closely as they can, Fred.
WHITFIELD: All right. Brianna Keilar on the Hill, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
Well, has the nation turned the corner on the foreclosure crisis? Probably not, but homeowners on the brink may be getting a break.
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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. To those Americans who -- whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president, too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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WHITFIELD: American mortgages are still falling into foreclosure in staggering numbers. But January's numbers were a little less staggering than December's.
The firm Realty Track says lenders moved to repossess or auction off 276,000 homes last month, 10 percent fewer than the month before but 18 percent more than a year ago. The White House and Democrats in Congress are pushing big banks for a foreclosure freeze, at least until the treasury unveils a $50 billion solution.
In the meantime, all those repos and desperation sales are driving down prices. The median price for a home sold in the last quarter of 2008 was $180,100, 12 percent lower than the year before.
So if you lose your job, you could lose your health insurance, as well. So how can you keep your family covered? We'll find out some of the options available.
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OBAMA: All these mementos of Abraham Lincoln, but you've got this flat-screen TV in there, which I thought to myself, now who stays in the Lincoln Bedroom and is watching Sports Center? You got your clicker. I mean, that didn't seem to me appropriate, but -- so I might take out the TV. I don't know.
We're going to have to discuss the White House. You should read or something when you're in the Lincoln Bedroom. Reread the Gettysburg Address.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Imagine Dr. King, you know, going up before -- in front of the Lincoln Memorial and having to scrub all his religious references or Abraham Lincoln in the second inaugural not being able to refer to God. What religious language can often do is allow us to get outside of ourselves and mobilize around a common good.
On the other hand, what those of us of religious faith have to do when we're in the public square is to translate our language into a universal language that can appeal to everybody. And both Lincoln and King did this, and every great leader did it. Because we are not just a Christian nation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Welcome back to our special coverage of the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth. Going to take a few minutes to talk about race in America and Lincoln's legacy and how that still influences race relations here in this country.
We're joined again by professor Jonathan Holloway, and David Gergen also back. From Los Angeles, we also have Ben Jealous. He is the president and CEO of the NAACP. And we should mention, you don't look 100 years old to me, Ben, but actually...
BEN JEALOUS, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NAACP: Don't feel it, either.
O'BRIEN: ... in a lot of ways you are 100 years old. You know, the NAACP, for people who don't know, was formed out of a desire to defend Lincoln's, really, dying legacy. And the tools with which you went to war, essentially, were legislative, judicial tools. What are the challenges for you today? You had many successes, some serious challenges. But as you look to the next 100 years for the NAACP, what's on your top ten list of things you need to confront and move forward on?
JEALOUS: You know, top ten would take a long time. Top two? We need good schools in this country. You know, we fought in the last century to make sure that all kids could go to the same school, but the goal was that all kids go to the same good school. At the same time, we have to deal with the problem of mass incarceration.
My generation was told that all the great battles had been won, that slavery was dead and that we killed Jim Crow, too, and so go out and get rich. And the reality is that we came of age just in time to find ourselves the most murdered generation in this country and the most incarcerated on this planet. So, we have a lot of work.
O'BRIEN: The NAACP really propelled through sort of its legal arm many of the things that Americans were kind of just watching on TV. I mean, Rosa Parks, people knew about the protest, but it was actually legal victory there. Brown versus Board of Education, a case about desegregation and marching, but actually was a legal decision. How do you use the power of the NAACP to leverage what clearly in your mind is the new front in civil rights, education? How do you do that?
JEALOUS: You know, as we move back and forth between the streets and the courts -- and this is clearly a time to be back in the streets. You know, this is an issue that has gone back really to be a local and county issue. We're in 1,200 counties around this country. So, it's about having a clear plan to involve all of those both to fight for, you know, reform to No Child Left Behind, for instance, but to also fight for changes right there at home, in those 1,200 places across this country.
O'BRIEN: The 100th anniversary of -- the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birthday, the 100th anniversary of the NAACP existing and also the first African-American president of the United States. It's kind of a nice intersection to be talking about history in this country in ways that I think we really haven't had a conversation. What do you think a black president is going to do for black people in this country?
JEALOUS: Well, we would hope that this president, who's a former civil-rights lawyer and a former community worker, would know that we don't have to explain things to him in the way that we've had to explain it to some past presidents. But at the same time, being black in and of itself doesn't really give us an advantage. You know, on the 20th we celebrated him as the first black president. But on the 21st he's simply the 44th president, period, full stop.
He gets all of the respect. He also gets all of the pressure. And our job is to make sure that human rights and civil rights stay at the top for him and for the Congress.
O'BRIEN: Ben, I want to bring in David Gergen and Jonathan Holloway, who've been joining us this afternoon to talk a lot about Lincoln's legacy and Obama's legacy. David, tell me how you think -- if Lincoln had lived, how would Reconstruction that been different? Because of course, it was all those failures in Reconstruction that led to the formation of the NAACP 100 years ago.
GERGEN: If Lincoln had lived, I think he would have sought to be a Mandela-like figure seeking reconciliation. Certainly, his second inaugural and his speeches shortly before his death suggested he was looking for a healing after the end of the war, that that was his hope, was to build up one nation again. After all, the war had been fought to save the republic.
And he wanted to re-create a different kind of republic with a new birth of freedom, as he said at Gettysburg, but to rebuild the republic. And I think he would have sought very hard to do that. And of course, the Reconstruction we had was a very harsh Reconstruction. It was one that was -- it was a punishing Reconstruction. There was a lot of anger in the North, and you can understand why. And there were all sorts of penalties imposed on the South, and it left deep and abiding divides between the South and the North.
I grew up in the South, and I can tell you, when I was a child, there were people who still thought of themselves as, you know, Confederates. They were still rearguing the war. And it took a long, long time for us to get over that. I think Lincoln would have been much more, as I say, a Mandela-like figure who would have stood for reconciliation.
O'BRIEN: Do you think, Jonathan, that the Reconstruction required sort of the Mandela-like figure, that big guiding figure to usher the nation through a very difficult time, and with his death it left instead a kind of a vacuum?
HOLLOWAY: Well, as far as a singular figure, no one could trump Lincoln. Certainly, so there is a vacuum there. But it was also, from African-Americans' perspective, a time of incredible promise. The road wasn't easy. But you have --
O'BRIEN: Blacks became landowners. Blacks starting voting.
HOLLOWAY: They're holding office.
O'BRIEN: Blacks went into Congress. Big percentagewise steps certainly in that time.
HOLLOWAY: Yes. Yes. And, I mean, in fact, the percentage -- I mean, to show you how great Reconstruction was for certain African- Americans, once Reconstruction ended in 1877, you have blacks falling out of office as they're being purged from the South. They don't appear back in office until they ride in President Clinton's coattails in 100 years -- over 100 years later.
So, Reconstruction, you know, I don't know if it would have been radically different if Lincoln were still around. I mean, that's always a tough thing for a historian to say.
O'BRIEN: Yes, and you know, and you hate to sort of put thoughts into somebody's mind who was born 200 years ago.
HOLLOWAY: That's right. That's right. But we can't discount the fact that he was a tremendously powerful and, frankly, polarizing figure. I mean, he would have been great for the North during Reconstruction. I don't know how he would have worked in the South.
O'BRIEN: Well, I want to thank Ben Jealous and again wish him a happy 100th birthday, the NAACP's history. Not only the judicial history but just the history of how it was founded and some of people who led the way is a fascinating read. And while you're reading up on Frederick Douglass, and you're reading up on Lincoln, read that, too. Ben, thank you for talking to us.
JEALOUS: Thank you, Soledad.
O'BRIEN: We certainly appreciate it. And Mr. Gergen, I know that we lose you as well at this hour so I certainly appreciate your time. Always great to have you to provide insight for us. And Professor Holloway's going to stick around. Appreciate that. Thank you, gentlemen.
And President Obama has often cited, as you know, Lincoln as an inspiration. Comparisons have been drawn between the two -- and many, many, many comparisons. But realistically, what do they really have in common? Americans debate that today on Facebook.
Let's get to Josh Levs. He's following that for us from the CNN Center in Atlanta. Hey, Josh.
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Isn't that where people debate things these days, Soledad? That's where you go.
O'BRIEN: Yes, yes. It used on they'd go to Cooper Union. But now they go right to Facebook.
LEVS: They go to Facebook (INAUDIBLE). A lot of passionate responses on both sides. There's actually a Facebook group that exists specifically to try to stop those comparisons. But I want to start off with the big picture. Let's go to some video of these Web pages we're going to show you here. President Lincoln actually has a lot of Web pages -- Facebook pages dedicated to him. Not bad for someone born 200 years ago.
In fact, you could take a look at just a few of them. We're going to show you the biggest one. The most popular page for him, it says over here, has about 20,000 supporters. A lot of people who have chosen to be members there have a lot to say about President Lincoln.
But it's nothing compared to this. (INAUDIBLE) Barack Obama's, President Obama's Web pages here. These go on and on, way more than 500 of them. The main one we're going to show you here, just to give you the big picture, is this one. Check it out -- more than 5 million members of this page. He used it during the campaign. He continues to use it today. Obviously a lot of people weighing in there, too.
So, here's what we did. we reached out to people on all sorts of Facebook pages, including those that are opposed to President Obama. Here's a sampling of the responses we got about this whole idea of comparing the two.
We're going to start off with this one right here. This one says, "Not only did President Obama announce his candidacy on Lincoln's birthday, take the same train ride to Washington, be inaugurated with a Lincoln theme and take the oath of office on his Bible, but he's also conducted himself in a manner befitting one of our greatest presidents by bringing Republicans into his Cabinet and working well trying to work with Republicans in Congress.
"I think Abe is up there smiling down for the first time in a long time at our current president. Or perhaps he's smiling because he can finally be proud of an Illinois politician!" That's from Joe St. George, Youngstown, Ohio.
But we're also hearing the other side, Soledad. A lot people rejecting these comparisons. Let's take a look at this one. We've got this one from Jennifer Oh, who wrote us this. She says, "How can people even compare? The man is new to the office? How can you compare what has been done to what isn't done yet?" And one more. I mentioned that Facebook page that exists specifically to try to stop these kinds of comparisons. Here's a quote from that one. This is what they're saying. The name of the group is Obama Isn't Lincoln.
And they say, "The problem with Barack, you and I read a Lincoln biography and conclude that Lincoln was great. Obama reads the same book and concludes he is Lincoln." Now, I will mention the chairman of that group is Jonah Goldberg, who's a frequent guest here on CNN.
All right, your chance now. You want to weigh in here? All you've got to do, go to facebook.com. Thanks to our brilliant Web producers here, I finally, Soledad, climbed on to the Facebook bandwagon. You can go on Facebook. Search Josh Levs CNN. We've got a discussion going right now.
O'BRIEN: You're the last person. The last person in the country climbing on the Facebook wagon.
LEVS: It's true. I feel like I'm the last one.
O'BRIEN: Jonah's comment was pretty funny, actually. You know, I think some of the folks have a point, which is he's been in office, what? Twenty-two days -- 20 -- just over three weeks.
LEVS: Right.
O'BRIEN: Let's give the man some time to be president.
LEVS: And, you know, a lot of people feel they heard too much of it during the campaign. Really frustrated with that. But some people believe so much in him, they say, hey, this is the closest thing we've seen to Lincoln. So, you know, we got both sides. O'BRIEN: All right, thanks very much, Josh. We appreciate it.
LEVS: You got it. Thanks a lot.
O'BRIEN: Let's talk about Ford's Theater for a moment. Many people, of course, know the drama that happened there on April 14, back in 1865, as we continue the celebration of Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday celebration. CNN's Don Lemon will take us back to that famous theater and also back to one of history's most infamous nights.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Hello, I'm Fredricka Whitfield.
Employers slashed more than a half million jobs last month. And millions more layoffs are predicted. Many of these workers aren't just losing their jobs, they're also losing their health insurance as well. Our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here with some advice on what to do when you lose that insurance.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: This is a tough position. I'm just going to start by making that very clear. You know, when you've had the luxury of having employer-based health coverage, it is really tough to go out on the open market and find your own coverage. It can be difficult. So, here are some first steps that you want to take.
First of all, if you're a healthy person you may have a relatively easy time finding health insurance. Start at a Web site called ehealthinsurance.com, where you can go and you can compare different prices. If you are not lucky enough to be healthy, you are going to have likely a very hard time finding health insurance. You may have to go to a state high-risk pool, which are designed for people like you.
If you have children, it is very much checking out SCHIP. You don't have to spend down. You don't have to get rid of all your savings and everything the way you do in Medicaid. So, definitely check out schip. Now, for more hints on what to do when you're looking for new health insurance, go to cnnhealth.com. All of the tips are there.
WHITFIELD: And besides going to cnnhealth.com, if you've ruled out all these things, you've tried them all, then what?
COHEN: What you need to do then is that you need to find some free services. And on my column, CNNhealth.com, you will see lots of free services to help people out when they don't have insurance.
WHITFIELD: All right, Elizabeth Cohen, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
COHEN: Thanks.
WHITFIELD: All right, much more of our special "From Lincoln to Obama" right after this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Ford's Theater is probably the most famous, or at least infamous, theater in America. It has been for the last 144 years. It is where an unstaged drama changed the course of history. And last night, it was center stage in the Lincoln bicentennial celebration.
Welcome back, everybody, to our daylong special event, "From Lincoln to Obama" on this, the 200th birthday of our 16th president. I'm Soledad O'Brien reporting from New York today. Ford's Theater in Washington is where Lincoln's life ended. But some people say it's also where his legacy was born. Don Lemon is there for us today. Hey, Don.
DON LEMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Soledad. You should see this theater now. It's really quite a beautiful place. And I'm going to give you a bit of a tour in just a bit. But you mentioned last night there was a beautiful, beautiful program here last night to mark the reopening and the renovation of this theater. Lots of dignitaries, and among those who attended, of course, the president and first lady.
When they arrived, the audience just went mad, applauding. It was thought that the president might not show up because he was dealing with the stimulus package. But he did take some time out to honor the person that he sort of looks to as his role model. They gave the president last night a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, an illuminated copy. And he also said a few words. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Michelle and I are so pleased to be here to rededicate this hallowed space. We know that Ford's Theater will remain a place where Lincoln's legacy thrives, where his love of the humanities and belief in the power of education have a home, and where his generosity of spirit are reflected in all the work that takes place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: And you can see the theater now. And they kept it, as I said, just authentic to the period. Really just sort of updating the electricity, updating the seats, painting, putting in new carpets. Making sure that it was appropriate now for a theater of this century.
It looks pretty much the way it did when President Abraham Lincoln came here and when he was shot here. You're getting a very special treat today, because they don't normally allow people to go live in this booth. And this is the booth right here where President Abraham Lincoln was shot. And you can see the guard, the park ranger, Ray Emerson, standing here to make sure that we don't bother anything.
And the reason they do this is because they feel the public should see, but they can't allow the public in because it would be damaged. But it's amazing to be in this booth, to see where the president was shot, and then lost his life across the street, actually died. And where John Wilkes Booth jumped off this stage and then ran out. You know, it's a beautiful renovation. Eighteen months, $25 million. But here's the thing. Most people don't come here thinking about the renovation and all the technology. They want to know how the president expect his last moments. And I took a tour with the director of this theater just the other day, just last night as a matter of fact, and he took us through the president's final moments. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL TETRAULT, FORD'S THEATER: This is the night that Lincoln arrived here, April 14th. He and Mary, the presidential party, ascended these stairs. The play had already started. So it was about 8:30 that evening. And he and his party came to the back of the stage here. And the actors on the stage could see him. So they stopped the performance.
LEMON: When he got to about here, they stopped?
TETRAULT: They stopped the performance. The conductor started playing "Hail to the Chief." The entire audience stood and applauded. The audience was standing. They were cheering. They were, you know, receiving the hero president. He had ended the war, which they had been living through for the last four years.
LEMON: He got here, everyone could see them going through.
TETRAULT: Everyone could see them. They went in this box.
LEMON: We get to go into the actual box. Wow.
TETRAULT: They came through this door. Walked in here. The president sat down in the rocker. He got over in front of the rocker. He leaned over the balustrade, acknowledged the crowd, gestured to them. He sat down. The crowd finally calmed down and they resumed the play.
LEMON: What about the flags and all this stuff?
TETRAULT: The flags were brought in that afternoon. John Ford went to the Treasury Department that day and got these flags and arranged them in the box, so that it could create something special.
Remember, it was a celebration. The war was over. This print here of George Washington, this was there. This is the actual print that was here that night. And it has a nick in the frame where John Wilkes Booth leapt off the stage and his spur caught the edge of that frame.
LEMON: So, he sneaks into the box.
TETRAULT: He just comes into the box.
LEMON: But he waited.
TETRAULT: He waited. He knew the play. People were going to be laughing. He snuck in. One single shot. A single-shot derringer in the back of Lincoln's head. And of course, he got into a tussle with Major Rathbone. He took out a Bowie knife and slit Major Rathbone, and then he jumped off the stage.
LEMON: When he jumped down here, that's not a -- that's a pretty big jump. You get down with a broken leg.
TETRAULT: It's a very big jump. But what's interesting about it is that when he first jumped, people thought it was part of the play. They sort of thought, what was that? That was part of the play.
And it wasn't until he sort of yelled out, you know, people were sort of like, what was that, and he went out, finally the scream came from the box, from Mrs. Lincoln, they've shot my husband. They've shot the president. And that's when sort of chaos broke out.
LEMON: What happened to John Wilkes Booth?
TETRAULT: John Wilkes busts through the scenery, he busts past the actors and he goes out the back doorway here to his waiting horse in the alleyway. Imagine 1865, there's all wooden rowhouses out here. Knocks a young stagehand aside, jumps on the horse and takes off.
LEMON: And that's where the manhunt begins.
TETRAULT: The manhunt begins right there.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: All day long here at Ford's Theater, the rangers have been leading interpretive programs, schoolchildren have been reciting the Emancipation Proclamation, both inaugural speeches and even the "House Divided" speech. It is really a day of celebration of life and not the death of the president, but a day of celebrating his life.
And I have to tell you, Soledad, it's a little bit humbling, and frankly, a little bit eerie to be in this box. But I realize that not many people get to see this. So, it's an honor.
O'BRIEN: Wow, it's really -- what a remarkable opportunity to get -- not only to be inside the box but to get that terrific tour with the blow-by-blow of that fateful night in history. Thanks, Don, appreciate it. That is breathtaking.
Here's a question for you. What would Lincoln do? it's a question, in fact, that President Obama might ask himself at times as he faces challenges ahead. Well, there's one man the president can look to for answers. We'll talk to that man when our daylong special, "From Lincoln to Obama," continues.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: We have been trying to eliminate the penny for quite some time. For some reason, it always comes back. And I've got to find out what it is about -- who's lobbying to keep the penny. Who is it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you put Lincoln on the $2 coin...
OBAMA: Oh, you think it's Illinois? You think we're...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is Illinois.
OBAMA: No. Come on. You're blaming us? I will seriously consider eliminating the penny as long as we can find Lincoln another place to land. Because Lincoln's a pretty important guy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
