Groups honor Presidents’ Day in Springfield

Posted on February 18, 2019
Teresa Haley, Springfield and Illinois president of the NAACP, spoke Monday at a gathering in Springfield. (Dave Dahl/WJBC)

 

By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – A Springfield gathering Monday honored Presidents’ Day, particularly the two who spent the most time in Springfield: Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama.

Christian McWhirter, the Lincoln curator at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, says there’s a connection: “The long shadow that Lincoln cast that Obama was very aware of; Obama very consciously tried to put himself in Lincoln’s legacy.”

Despite the accomplishments of Lincoln and Obama, the civil rights struggle continues. Noting that polls in the mid-1960’s showed two-thirds of Americans had a negative opinion of Martin Luther King, Jr., Springfield and Illinois NAACP president Teresa Haley said, “Still, today, over two-thirds of Americans don’t believe in the NAACP and what our mission is. We are the oldest, the boldest, the most loved, the most hated civil rights organization in the world, and that is for a reason: it’s because the NAACP is not just about black folks; it’s about all folks.”

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]

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