History Alum Publishes Letters Written by African Americans to Lincoln

Jonathan White Illuminates African American Civil War Esperience

Department of History alum Jonathan W. White (PhD, 2008) is the editor of a new book, "To Address You as My Friend": African Americans’ Letters to Abraham Lincoln published by the University of North Carolina Press. This enlightening collection of 125 mostly unpublished letters were written by African Americans to Abraham Lincoln while he was president. Jonathan was a research assistant for Distinguished University Professor and Professor of History Ira Berlin, the late brilliant historian of the African American experience who made struggles over slavery and freedom central to North American history. Indeed, this new book is dedicated to Jonathan's teachers in the Department of History. He was also motivated by the Freedmen and Southern Society Project, a collaboration between the UMD Department of History and the National Archives, which publishes documents illuminating the Civil War from its beginning through Reconstruction.

See the article in Maryland Today.