Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. Recently, in our episode on Susie King Taylor,
Speaker 1: we talked about her account of celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation
Speaker 1: with a barbecue. Originally, that section of the episode also
Speaker 1: had a discussion of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which basically
Speaker 1: gave the rebelling slave states a deadline to stop fighting
Speaker 1: and rejoin the Union, otherwise all enslaved people in those
Speaker 1: states would be free. Taylor was a laundress for the
Speaker 1: first South Carolina Volunteers, which were officially mustered in on
Speaker 1: November seventh, eighteen sixty two, in the window between when
Speaker 1: Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and when the Emancipation
Speaker 1: Proclamation went into effect. Yeah, she did a lot of
Speaker 1: things besides being a laundress, but that's how she was
Speaker 1: enrolled in the volunteers. So that part of the episode
Speaker 1: I cut that out. It wound up feeling kind of
Speaker 1: like a digression. But we do have a whole episode
Speaker 1: on the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and the political strategy behind
Speaker 1: it and its impact on a civil war. This was
Speaker 1: an interview with doctor John B. King, Junior, who at
Speaker 1: the time was the Secretary of Education under President Barack Obama.
Speaker 1: Today he is Chancellor of the State University of New York.
Speaker 1: This originally came out on August thirty first, twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. We have an
Speaker 1: interview today. Yeah, that you did, I did, I did
Speaker 1: do it. We haven't had an interview in a while,
Speaker 1: that's correct. Today we are talking to the Secretary of Education,
Speaker 1: John B. King, Junior and Secretary King joined the United
Speaker 1: States Department of Education as a principal senior Advisor in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, and before that he was the commission of
Speaker 1: Education for the State of New York. But his career
Speaker 1: really began as an educator. He taught social studies in
Speaker 1: San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Boston, Massachusetts. And then earlier
Speaker 1: this year, we got an email from the Department of
Speaker 1: Education asking whether we might like to have him on
Speaker 1: the show. I just I'm gonna go ahead and thank
Speaker 1: the Department of Education for asking that, because this turned
Speaker 1: out to be quite lovely, because the answer was immediately
Speaker 1: uh huh, yes, yes, yes, so I was yes, But
Speaker 1: then it was also okay, how would that work because
Speaker 1: we're not really, you know, an education policy podcast, and
Speaker 1: that that wouldn't really be what our listeners would be
Speaker 1: up for. So what we did was we quickly decided
Speaker 1: on a topic that at that point was completely new
Speaker 1: to me and I think also to Holly. It was
Speaker 1: the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. I had never heard of this before.
Speaker 1: It was never mentioned in any of my history classes.
Speaker 1: It also didn't come up in any of our many
Speaker 1: previous episodes about slavery, the Civil War and reconstruction, of
Speaker 1: which we have a lot until our recent episode on
Speaker 1: contraband camps that Holly researched, that actually was researched after
Speaker 1: this whole interview was scheduled, Yes, but hadn't happened yet.
Speaker 1: It hadn't happened yet. And I think part of it
Speaker 1: is that this particular document gets amassed into like a big,
Speaker 1: kind of glossed over thing of well, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of back and forth leading up to the Emancipation Proclamation,
Speaker 1: and it kind of gets lumped in and it doesn't
Speaker 1: get a moment to stand on its own and be examined. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Emancipation Proclamation, the final one, issued by Abraham Lincoln
Speaker 1: on January first of eighteen sixty three, is of course
Speaker 1: way more familiar to most people. That's the one that
Speaker 1: declared that people enslaved in states that were rebelling against
Speaker 1: the Union quote are and henceforward shall be free. That
Speaker 1: January first Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately free everyone who
Speaker 1: was enslaved in the United States. It only applied to
Speaker 1: the Confederate states that were in rebellion, but it did
Speaker 1: just set the stage for the eventual abolition of slavery
Speaker 1: in the entire United States. Another date that comes up
Speaker 1: pretty regularly is June teenth, which is June nineteenth of
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five, which is when the people of Galveston,
Speaker 1: Texas finally got the news the Emancipation Proclamation had happened.
Speaker 1: At that point, the war had also ended, so a
Speaker 1: lot of times that comes up as like the like
Speaker 1: the last holdout of chattel slavery in the United States.
Speaker 1: Slavery was formally abolished nationwide with the adoption of the
Speaker 1: Thirteenth Amendment on December eighteenth of eighteen sixty five. So
Speaker 1: what we're talking about today is all stuff from way
Speaker 1: before that. The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was basically a one
Speaker 1: hundred day warning of the proclamation that was to come
Speaker 1: that following January. The document itself is one of Secretary
Speaker 1: King's particular interests, and while he was Commissioner of Education
Speaker 1: in New York, he took the document itself on a
Speaker 1: seven city tour as part of an exhibition called First
Speaker 1: Step to Freedom. The exhibition started out at the Schomberg
Speaker 1: Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City
Speaker 1: and from there, as we said, it toured to seven
Speaker 1: other cities. Secretary King also co authored the text that
Speaker 1: went along with that exhibition, and the first part of
Speaker 1: our interview with him, we are going to talk about
Speaker 1: why Lincoln decided to basically warn the rebelling states of
Speaker 1: what was coming, and how that document fit into the
Speaker 1: arc of how the Civil War progressed from originally from
Speaker 1: the Union point of view being more about retaining the Union,
Speaker 1: to eventually from the Union point of view being about
Speaker 1: abolishing slavery. So joining us today is Secretary of Education
Speaker 1: John B. King Junior. Thank you so much for being
Speaker 1: on the show today. Happy to do it. So I
Speaker 1: have heard from so many folks on your staff that
Speaker 1: one of your passions is the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. And
Speaker 1: so on September twenty second, eighteen sixty two, which was
Speaker 1: one hundred days before he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, President
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln issued this preliminary Proclamation that said, among other things,
Speaker 1: that if the rebelling States did not return to the Union,
Speaker 1: their enslaved populations would be forever freed. So what led
Speaker 1: to President Lincoln basically warning the rebelling states that this
Speaker 1: was going to happen. Well, so you know, in many
Speaker 1: ways it was for Lincoln a manner of political strategy
Speaker 1: right to build public will around the Emancipation Proclamation. He
Speaker 1: wanted to both convey that the South had had an
Speaker 1: opportunity to return to the Union and also build public
Speaker 1: understanding that this was essential step in order to successfully
Speaker 1: prosecute the Civil War. And interestingly, he sort of timed
Speaker 1: issuing the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation for a moment when the
Speaker 1: North was doing better in the Civil War. So the
Speaker 1: date that it was issued is actually bound up with
Speaker 1: the Battle at Antietam, and it was the success there
Speaker 1: that allowed him to issue it because he had been
Speaker 1: warned by Secretary Seward back in July that if he
Speaker 1: issued the preliminary emancipation Proclamation at a low moment in
Speaker 1: the conflict, it would seem like desperation, but if he
Speaker 1: did it after a victory, it would seem like a
Speaker 1: more confident maneuver done to give it South a chance
Speaker 1: to return to the Union on the right terms, or
Speaker 1: to move forward to finish the war. Was there any
Speaker 1: chance at all that the rebelling states were going to
Speaker 1: rejoin the Union after this essentially threat. No. I think
Speaker 1: this really was Lincoln, as master politician, figuring out what
Speaker 1: it would take to build public will. He also wanted
Speaker 1: realized the historical importance of the Emancipation Proclamation, that in
Speaker 1: many ways it was fulfillment of the promise of the
Speaker 1: Declaration of Independence, critical defining moment for the country, And
Speaker 1: I think wanted to have the Emancipation Proclamation have the
Speaker 1: strongest possible foundation because he recognized its importance. So part
Speaker 1: of this was, as you said, laying this legal groundwork
Speaker 1: for future emancipation. So what would have happened if these
Speaker 1: states had rejoined the Union in an effort to not
Speaker 1: have their slaves emancipated well. Interestingly, in the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation,
Speaker 1: there's language around the possibility that there would be some
Speaker 1: sort of financial renumeration for the owners of slaves if
Speaker 1: the slave states returned. That language does not appear in
Speaker 1: the in the January eighteen sixty three Amancipatient Proclamation. And
Speaker 1: so Lincoln had a vision that least in theory, that
Speaker 1: the institution of slavery could have been on a kind
Speaker 1: of a path to disappearance, eliminated in the territories, sort
Speaker 1: of phased out in the states that had slavery in place.
Speaker 1: But I think ultimately Lincoln understood that this was a
Speaker 1: step that would ultimately change the nature of the war
Speaker 1: and make the war fundamentally not just about protecting the Union,
Speaker 1: but about ending the institution of slavery. Oh and that
Speaker 1: really leads really well into my next question, which is,
Speaker 1: at the start of the war, several slave states had
Speaker 1: basically promised that they would secede if Lincoln was elected,
Speaker 1: And so then he was elected and they did secede.
Speaker 1: But from Lincoln's point of view, the war at the
Speaker 1: beginning was not really so much about slavery as it
Speaker 1: was about preserving the Union, and it was like the
Speaker 1: focus gradually became it came around to the abolition of
Speaker 1: slavery as the war progressed. So where does the preliminary
Speaker 1: Emancipation Proclamation fit into this arc of moving from it
Speaker 1: being about preserving the Union to also being about ending
Speaker 1: the institution of slavery. You know, it's an interesting question,
Speaker 1: I'm one that really the scholars of Lincoln have debated.
Speaker 1: So there's one view that is that Lincoln all ways
Speaker 1: intended to make progress towards the eventual abolition of slavery,
Speaker 1: but was a savvy and thoughtful politician understood that the
Speaker 1: first step was to not have slavery expand into the
Speaker 1: into the territories. As the war began, saw the opportunity
Speaker 1: to move towards emancipation, and pursued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation
Speaker 1: and the Emancipation Proclamation as as a tactic to satisfy
Speaker 1: his ultimate goal of the elimination of slavery. So that's
Speaker 1: one view. Another view is that Lincoln was most focused
Speaker 1: always on preservation of the Union and would have chosen
Speaker 1: that above all else. And you know, there's of course
Speaker 1: the you know, the famous language from Lincoln where he
Speaker 1: tries to make that make the point that he would
Speaker 1: preserve the Union above all else, whether that was with
Speaker 1: or without the institution of slavery. So one view is
Speaker 1: that that was a genuine articulation of his view, and
Speaker 1: another view would be that it was a political strategy
Speaker 1: and that he realized he had to build public will
Speaker 1: over time. And you know, and some of Lincoln's writing,
Speaker 1: you hear him talking about the idea that public will
Speaker 1: is essential to accomplishing things that are hard, and that
Speaker 1: you need to bring the public along with you. So
Speaker 1: I love his idea of the president needing to bring
Speaker 1: the public along with him as he and the nation
Speaker 1: were gradually moving toward abolishing slavery. That idea has been
Speaker 1: present and so so many social changes we have talked
Speaker 1: about on the show before, Like we've talked about some
Speaker 1: really difficult times in the United States where a change
Speaker 1: needed to be made and it took a while to
Speaker 1: bring the people along to be more on board with
Speaker 1: the change. So it's really interesting to talk about this
Speaker 1: document as one piece of a more gradual attempt to
Speaker 1: change the public view to the idea that abolishing slavery
Speaker 1: was really something that needed to happen entirely it is. It's, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we often think about this period, I think,
Speaker 1: particularly in history in a way where it gets taught
Speaker 1: in a very black and white way. And I don't
Speaker 1: mean that to be punny, but it's like this happened,
Speaker 1: and then everybody got it, and then this happened and
Speaker 1: everybody and it's like no, no, no, no no, no. It
Speaker 1: was a slope for like, none of these steps were immediate.
Speaker 1: They were not you know, like a door opening or closing.
Speaker 1: It was all like gradual. You really had to like
Speaker 1: coax it through its processes. So then continue the coaxing
Speaker 1: for more than a century afterwards. So we were going
Speaker 1: to take a brief break for a word from a
Speaker 1: sponsor before we get back to talking to Secretary King.
Speaker 1: So next up in Tracy's talk with Secretary King, they're
Speaker 1: going to talk about the language of the document, which
Speaker 1: is a lot more formal and legal than the Lincoln
Speaker 1: era documents that a lot of US school kids wind
Speaker 1: up memorizing four class It does not at all sound
Speaker 1: like four score and seven years ago, not remotely. So
Speaker 1: one of the things that I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people remember most about Lincoln from their just regular history
Speaker 1: classes is the get the Gettysburg address, And that is
Speaker 1: an address that you would probably describe as being beautifully written.
Speaker 1: It has this almost poetic, flowing language, and this document
Speaker 1: does not really have that. It is a lot more
Speaker 1: formal and egal in its tone. Can you talk about
Speaker 1: that difference a little bit? Sure? Well, you know, Lincoln
Speaker 1: was a lawyer, and he thought about this as a
Speaker 1: as a legal action that would need to be legally defensible,
Speaker 1: and view the emancipation Proclamation as exercise of the sort
Speaker 1: of presidential war powers. And so the document is in
Speaker 1: very legalistic prose and intentionally so. And he took great
Speaker 1: care and personally authoring the document and the version of
Speaker 1: the primary Emancipation Proclamation that the New York State Library has,
Speaker 1: the original in Lincoln's own hand, even has cut and
Speaker 1: pasted sections from the confiscation Acts where you can see
Speaker 1: that he literally cut them out and pasted them. And
Speaker 1: there's even that spot where you can see Lincoln's thumb
Speaker 1: print in glue um on the document as he cut
Speaker 1: and pasted into it. So this was this was for
Speaker 1: Lincoln a very careful step, and it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: I think one of the powerful things as a teacher
Speaker 1: UM as you're teaching these documents is to see the
Speaker 1: complexity of the role of historic figures. You know that
Speaker 1: Lincoln was president making political judgments, thinking about um his legacy,
Speaker 1: thinking about the importance of these events in the grand
Speaker 1: sweep of history, their significance for the country. He wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure that that emancipation succeeded. He wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure he built public support, that he had a
Speaker 1: strong legal position, and that he could navigate to emancipation
Speaker 1: while preserving the role of the border states that were
Speaker 1: members of the Union. So this is all very very
Speaker 1: carefully executed by Lincoln. The first time that I actually
Speaker 1: read this, it was a transcript of the document because
Speaker 1: I have a very hard time with historical handwriting, and
Speaker 1: I didn't realize until much later that those sections of
Speaker 1: the previous acts were literally cut out and pasted to
Speaker 1: the document. And that quickly became one of my favorite
Speaker 1: things about it, was that he cut it out and
Speaker 1: pasted it on there so it would be exactly the
Speaker 1: word for word, and then also not have to rewrite
Speaker 1: the whole thing yeah, yeah, old fashioned before before long
Speaker 1: before the cutting and pasting of Microsoft word. Yea, So
Speaker 1: there is there's one copy of this document that's in
Speaker 1: the president's own handwriting. What happened to that physical copy
Speaker 1: once he signed it? Well, so you know. Later the
Speaker 1: document was donated to a commission that was set up
Speaker 1: for the care of soldiers, of medical care of soldiers,
Speaker 1: and that commission then held a auction and an abolitionist
Speaker 1: won the documented an auction. He bought a lot of
Speaker 1: tickets in the auction or raffle, and then the New
Speaker 1: York State Legislature allocated funding to buy the document from him,
Speaker 1: and that's how it came to be in the possession
Speaker 1: of New York State. And New York State has periodically
Speaker 1: shared the document with the public. And when I was
Speaker 1: State Commissioner in New York, I was privileged to be
Speaker 1: a part of an effort where we developed an exhibit
Speaker 1: with the Pulmonary Mancipation Proclamation and also a speech that
Speaker 1: doctor King gave on the hundredth anniversary of the Pulmonary
Speaker 1: Mancipation Proclamation, And we built an exhibit for kids with
Speaker 1: the two documents and took it all around the state
Speaker 1: and it was during the time that the Lincoln movie
Speaker 1: was coming out, and there was a lot of interest
Speaker 1: when we had thousands of people and thousands of students
Speaker 1: from schools all over the state come to see this
Speaker 1: exhibit and come to see the document, and you can
Speaker 1: really see people's appreciation for Lincoln in their enthusiasm just
Speaker 1: to stand in the same space as this document. So,
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is the case now. And
Speaker 1: when I was studying, you know, k through twelve American history,
Speaker 1: this was in the late nineteen eighties, early nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: and this whole idea that there was a preliminary Emancipation
Speaker 1: Proclamation and that there was a process of setting legal
Speaker 1: foundations in order to abolish the institution of slavery, that
Speaker 1: was skipped completely over and it seemed more like the
Speaker 1: Emancipation Proclamation and just kind of appeared out of whole cloth,
Speaker 1: and then the slaves were free, and that's it's that's
Speaker 1: not at all what happened. Why do you think so
Speaker 1: much of that process is omitted from so many history
Speaker 1: lessons about the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I thinks as a country, you know, we
Speaker 1: so celebrate Lincoln's legacy and the notion of Lincoln as
Speaker 1: the emancipator, which is true and right, but there's also
Speaker 1: nuance behind that. And you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: I tried to do when I taught in high school
Speaker 1: history and also high school Civics was to China have
Speaker 1: students get a sense of the complexity of politics throughout
Speaker 1: our history. You know, It's one of the great things
Speaker 1: about the Hamilton Musical is I think it's given a
Speaker 1: generation of Americans a better under standing that these figures
Speaker 1: in history aren't just two dimensional characters that a pr
Speaker 1: and our currency. That they're complicated people operating in complicated times,
Speaker 1: making political judgments, making very strategic decisions. And you know,
Speaker 1: from my perspective, it makes Abraham Lincoln even more heroic
Speaker 1: because you understand that that that he had to have
Speaker 1: carefully plotted legal strategy, a carefully plotted political strategy to
Speaker 1: accomplish emancipatient and ultimately to win the Civil War. It's
Speaker 1: one of the nice things about some of the recent
Speaker 1: books and study on Lyndon Johnson and the path to
Speaker 1: the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these important achievements are the product not of a sudden inspiration,
Speaker 1: but rather careful execution by very capable politicians. And sometimes
Speaker 1: the word politician is put in a negative light, but
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln was a very very capable politician. So before
Speaker 1: we get to the end of our interview, we're going
Speaker 1: to stop for one more brief word from a sponsor,
Speaker 1: and after we hear from that sponsor, we are going
Speaker 1: to talk about why this particular document is so personally
Speaker 1: important to Secretary King. Okay, so let's get to the
Speaker 1: end of the interview. Secretary King is going to talk
Speaker 1: about the documents personal importance to him and as also
Speaker 1: how it fits into the greater arc of progress toward
Speaker 1: racial equality in the United States. So every person I
Speaker 1: spoke with while arranging this interview with you talked about
Speaker 1: this document being really important to you. So what does
Speaker 1: this document specifically mean to you? And why why is
Speaker 1: it the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in particular that has so
Speaker 1: captivated you. You know, I think for me, it's a
Speaker 1: reflection of um both the ways in which United States
Speaker 1: has fallen short of the founding values. You know that
Speaker 1: that we have to acknowledge that the United States began
Speaker 1: very much with the institution of slavery as fundamental to
Speaker 1: how the country works. And there was a real tension
Speaker 1: between the institution of slavery and the promise of the
Speaker 1: Declaration of Independence and then and the notion, the notion
Speaker 1: that all men aren't created equal, and so there was
Speaker 1: this gap, and we all as Americans need to appreciate
Speaker 1: that complexity of our history around issues of race. At
Speaker 1: the same time, the document also illustrates and something the
Speaker 1: President often talks about, that the trajectory of America is
Speaker 1: towards greater equality, greater opportunity over time. And so this period,
Speaker 1: the Civil War and reconstruction are really a second birth
Speaker 1: of the United States. You know, when you look at
Speaker 1: the thirteenth fourteen, fifteenth Amendments, which were really products of
Speaker 1: the Civil War and reconstruction, they expanded the definition of
Speaker 1: American equality and American democracy, and this document was very
Speaker 1: much a part of that journey. And then the last
Speaker 1: pieces this document is also about the complexity of government,
Speaker 1: the importance of leaders figuring out how to bring the
Speaker 1: public along on things that are hard, the importance of
Speaker 1: leaders having a good political strategy, a good legal strategy,
Speaker 1: as well as moral higher purpose, and Lincoln really combined
Speaker 1: all of those things, and you see that very much
Speaker 1: in this document and the eventual January Emancipation Proclamation January
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty three. So is there anything else about this
Speaker 1: document or its history that you really think that listeners
Speaker 1: to our show should know? You know, the one thing
Speaker 1: I would say is, just speaking as a teacher, I
Speaker 1: just think there's so much power in students engaging with
Speaker 1: primary source documents. And it's one thing to read, you know,
Speaker 1: a textbook and what the textbook might say, but it's
Speaker 1: another to delve into a historical document and really appreciate
Speaker 1: what the author was trying to accomplish, the choices the
Speaker 1: author made. You can imagine a powerful unit comprised of
Speaker 1: this preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, the Mancipation Proclamation of January eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty three, the Gettysburg Address, the Second Inaugural Address, the thirteenth, fourteen,
Speaker 1: fifteenth Amendments. You know, just study through those powerful historical texts,
Speaker 1: and it can be a way to inspire students both
Speaker 1: about literacy and about social studies. It also can be
Speaker 1: a way to help students see the nuances in our history.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak
Speaker 1: with us today. Was a pleasure to have you on
Speaker 1: the show. Thanks, it's fun to talk with you, and
Speaker 1: thanks for what you do making sure folks are learning
Speaker 1: about our history. Thanks so much for joining us on
Speaker 1: this Saturday. Since this episode is out of the archive,
Speaker 1: if you heard an email address or a Facebook RL
Speaker 1: or something similar over the course of the show, that
Speaker 1: could be obsolete now. Our current email address is History
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