By Ed Epstein
Washington, D.C.
November 14, 2024
The Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia will mark its 90th anniversary in 2025, and to celebrate that achievement and to rededicate ourselves to honoring the life, legacy and vision of Abraham Lincoln, we are proud to announce the creation of a research fellowship program for graduate students at the Howard University History Department.
The program, consisting of two $1,000 grants each year, is a cooperative venture between the Lincoln Group and Howard. The group approached Howard about creating the program, and the History Department advertised the new program among its graduate students, screened applicants and sent the top candidates to the Lincoln Group board committee overseeing the fellowship. The board panel made the final choices.
Lincoln Group member and Howard history professor emerita Edna Greene Medford facilitated the group’s meetings with Howard.
Ebonee Davis-Hayes (pictured to the left, above), and Fahtim’a Yaro (to the right, below), are pursuing PhDs in history. Both are researching aspects of slavery, work that the group has pledged to support for the next two years, meaning each will receive $2,000 to help pay for their research. In offering the fellowships, the Lincoln Group spelled out the types of research we are interested in supporting. “LGDC wants such research to cover 19th century topics that have at least some connection to Abraham Lincoln, his era and his legacy. These would include, but would not be limited to, such areas as slavery, emancipation, the role of U.S. colored troops in the Civil War, the daily life of slaves, slave family structure, the Underground Railroad, Reconstruction, the rise of Jim Crow laws and aspects of the Lincoln presidency,” we specified.
The provocative work being pursued by Davis-Hayes and Yaro fits the bill. Davis-Hayes’ project is looking at the memorialization of black burial grounds in nineteenth century Alexandria, Virginia, a city that was a center of the slave trade right up until federal forces occupied it early in the Civil War. “Throughout my dissertation I highlight the ways in which the city of Alexandria’s history as a major port city for the domestic slave trade, an incestuous locale of urban slavery, and a Union-held contraband stronghold, informed the collective memory of black Alexandrians. This memory, I argue, ultimately became the foundation for their identity in the years following emancipation.” she wrote in her fellowship application.
Yaro is delving into the particularly distasteful slave trade in “fancy” women. “Enslaved women and girls were sold and bought as ‘fancies’ with the purpose and promise of sexual exploitation or in some cases a ‘spousal’ relationship,” Yaro wrote in her application. “In addition to this, some men did it as a means to flex their wealth and status as only those who had substantial funds could afford one. Slave women and girls were subjected to the trade if they were deemed really desirable and were often priced at $1,000 or more. Although numerous texts have highlighted the experiences of enslaved women, fewer have explored the lives of women who were subjected to the fancy trade.”
The Lincoln Group approached Howard about establishing the fellowship because no university in the greater Washington D.C. area is as closely connected to Lincoln. The university was founded in 1867 by Union general and Medal of Honor recipient Oliver Otis Howard, who was also head of the Freedmen’s Bureau that was created to help ex-slaves by, among other things, providing access to higher education. Howard served as university president from 1867 to 1873.
During his time at the bureau, Howard clashed repeatedly with President Andrew Johnson as the president moved away from the Republican Congress’ Reconstruction policies. The new Howard fellowships are in addition to another ongoing Lincoln Group education project. Through our John Elliff scholarship program, named for our late president, the group annually funds scholarships for teachers from across the country to come to Ford’s Theatre for a week in the summer to learn how to incorporate the legacy of Abraham Lincoln into their curriculums.
We hope that both programs will thrive for years to come. Donations to help fund the group’s education efforts are much appreciated. For more information, contact me at edepstein1@yahoo.com.
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