Lerone Bennett Jr., Historian of Black America, Dies at 89

Lerone Bennett Jr., Historian of Black America, Dies at 89
“It is my opinion, and the opinion of many writers
and scholars in this field,” he said, “that segregated textbooks — and segregated and segregating use of words, symbols and ideas — are as dangerous to the internal peace of America as segregated schools and residential areas.”
That was relatively mild compared with what he said about Abraham Lincoln in a January 1968 article in Ebony.
Despite his reputation as an emancipator, Mr. Bennett wrote, Lincoln was actually a white supremacist who thought
that the races would be better off separated, “preferably with the Atlantic Ocean or some other large, deep body of water between them.”
“The man’s character, his way with words and his assassination, together with the psychological needs
of a racist society, have obscured his contradictions under a mountain of myths,” he added
Lerone Bennett Jr., a historian and journalist who wrote extensively on race relations
and black history and was a top editor at Ebony magazine for decades, died on Wednesday in Chicago.
Bird was there and Bigger and King and Malcolm and millions of other Xs
and crosses, along with Mahalia singing, Duke Ellington composing, Gwendolyn Brooks rhyming and Michael Jordan slam-dunking.”
Mr. Bennett was born on Oct. 17, 1928, in Clarksdale, Miss.
“In the hold of that ship, in a manner of speaking, was the whole gorgeous panorama of Black America, was jazz
and the spirituals and the black gold that made American capitalism possible.