Milestones: February 12, 2024

February 12, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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‘HONEST ABE BORN’ — FUTURE U.S. PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS born in Hodgenville, Kentucky, on Feb. 12, 1809. Largely self-educated because he had the chance to attend school for only one year, Lincoln was a voracious reader. He read law, but before becoming an attorney, he had already served in the Illinois legislature and in the U.S. Congress. He became the leader of the newly established Republican Party; with regard to the issue of slavery, he advocated for the practice to be limited to states where it was already in force. He did not want slavery to expand to new states. His highest priority was keeping the Union together. During his unsuccessful 1858 campaign for the Senate, Lincoln warned that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” Two years later, he ran for president, winning both the Electoral College and the popular vote. However, his concessions on slavery displaced the Southern states, and they seceded.

Ultimately, Lincoln became an abolitionist, and his greatest legacy was signing the Emancipation Proclamation, although doing so made him the South’s enemy and led to his assassination on April 14, 1865.

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BROUGHT AWARENESS TO LYNCHINGS — THE NAACP WAS FOUNDED ON THE CENTENNIAL OF SLAIN PRESIDENT LINCOLN’S BIRTH, Feb. 12, 1909, when a group of African American leaders, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, announced a new organization to advocate for the rights of African Americans. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People immediately began responding to a growing number of lynchings during the 1890s and early 1900s, as well as a plethora of segregation laws enacted and the re-control of white supremacists within state governments. A number of Black activists who were against conciliation and assimilation also joined the NAACP from the Niagara Movement. One of the NAACP’s first actions was to hold a silent march in New York that attracted 100,000.

The NAACP has advocated for the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts and has won other legal victories, foremost among them the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.

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FUGITIVE SLAVE ACTS — CONGRESS ON FEB. 12, 1793, PASSED THE FLEDGLING UNITED STATES’ FIRST FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW, which required all states to forcibly return enslaved persons who had escaped, even in those states where slavery was forbidden. The laws’ phrasing was “no person held to service of labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such labor or service or labor, but shall be delivered upon claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” However, Northern states especially found a way to circumvent these laws through lax or minimal enforcement. They even passed their own measures that enjoined state officials from aiding in the capture of runaways or from jailing the fugitives. Enraged Southern states successfully campaigned for the passage of a new fugitive law, which became part of the Compromise of 1850. One of the most famous Supreme Court cases, the Dred Scott case of 1857, stemmed from this law and galvanized public opinion on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line.

But again, the North found creative ways to circumvent this law — the Underground Railroad, a network of persons and organizations developed to bring escaped slaves to freedom, with Brooklyn playing a prominent role.

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‘THE GATES’ — MANY NEW YORKERS AND VISITORS TO CENTRAL PARK MAY REMEMBER “THE GATES,” A PUBLIC ART INSTALLATION that debuted on Feb. 12, 2005. The brainchild of husband-and-wife artistic duo Christo and Jeanne-Claude, “The Gates” consisted of a simple enough but ambitious installation in the thousands of 16-foot-high gates, hung with cloth panels. The artists met resistance in trying to sell the idea to the City of New York. But they persevered, and on Feb. 12, 2005, Mayor Michael Bloomberg unfurled the first curtain on the installation. It became one of the best-known and most beloved works of site-specific public art.

The New York Times’ positive critique read, in part, “Even at first blush, it was clear that ‘The Gates’ is a work of pure joy, a vast populist spectacle of good will and simple eloquence, the first great public art event of the 21st century.”

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OUTSPOKEN NOVELS — CHILDREN’S BOOK AUTHOR JUDY BLUME WAS BORN AS JUDY SUSSMAN ON FEB. 12, 1938. Blume, who graduated in 1961 with a teaching degree, gained acclaim for her books geared for youths that dealt with some courageous topics, including interfaith marriage, menstruation, popularity, cliques, bullying, divorce, sexuality, friendships, family and self-esteem. Blume published her first children’s book in 1969 titled “The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo.” Her beloved works include “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing” and “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” The explicit subject matter attracted the attention of censors, and Blume’s books became part of a major book-ban campaign during the 1980s. Blume became an advocate against book bans.

Last year, the movie “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” was released to critical acclaim.

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See previous milestones, here.