Friefeld to deliver lecture at LLCC; other events planned marking Lincoln's birthday

Jacob Friefeld, director of the Center for Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield, will deliver the annual Lincoln Lecture at Lincoln Land Community College Monday, highlighting a number of events marking the birthday of the 16th president.

Historian and author Nigel Hamilton will keynote the Abraham Lincoln Association (ALA) Birthday Banquet on Feb. 17.

On Saturday, the Lincolns4Lincoln Literacy Jam benefitting Compass for Kids will be held in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum plaza.

Lincoln Lecture

Friefeld's address on “Abraham Lincoln and the Making of the American West” will be presented by in the Trutter Center on the LLCC campus at 9 a.m. The presentation will also be available via Zoom.

Friefeld will discuss Lincoln’s legacy in the West and the Homestead Act of 1862, which worked in combination with the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th and 14th Amendments to give Black Americans an opportunity to own land after the Civil War.

Friefeld examined the Homestead Act in "Homesteading the Plains: Toward a New History," a 2017 book he co-authored with Richard Edwards and Rebecca Wingo.

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The event is free.

Friefeld’s new book, “The First Migrants: How Black Homesteaders’ Quest for Land and Freedom Heralded America’s Great Migration,” also co-authored with Edwards, has been selected as a finalist for the 2024 Association for the Study of African American Life and History Book Prize.

“The First Migrants,” tells the story of African Americans who left the South between 1877 and the Great Migration and went west seeking land and freedom.

LLCC Outreach Centers in Jacksonville, Beardstown, Taylorville, and Litchfield also plan various Lincoln-themed activities.

ALA birthday banquet

The British-born Hamilton, who has written about numerous U.S. presidents, will take up "Roosevelt and Lincoln -- Presidents at War" at the ALA Birthday Banquet at the President Abraham Lincoln Hotel, 701 E. Adams St.

Hamilton is currently working on a dual biography on Lincoln and Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Hamilton may be best known for the 1992 book "JFK: Reckless Youth," which covered Kennedy's early career, his youth and Harvard education and his service in the Navy in World War II. It was made into a TV mini-series starring Patrick Dempsey.

Hamilton is the author of a three-volume history of President Franklin D. Roosevelt as commander-in-chief during World War II.

Tickets for the banquet, which begins at 6 p.m., are $95 each and can be obtained online at www.abrahamlincolnassociation.org, by calling (217) 546-2656 or by emailing KaySmith.ala@gmail.com.

Benjamin P. Thomas symposium

The annual Benjamin P. Thomas Symposium will be held at the President Lincoln Hotel beginning at 10 a.m. on Feb. 17.

Two morning sessions and an afternoon session are free. The symposium commemorates Thomas, a Lincoln biographer and former Springfield resident.

The 10 a.m. session features James H. Read, professor of political science at the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University of Minnesota. His new book is "Sovereign of a Free People: Abraham Lincoln, Majority Rule, and Slavery."

Author Gordon Leidner examines Lincoln and the bible in the 10:45 a.m. session. Leidner has written widely about Lincoln and Alexander Hamilton.

The 1:15 p.m. program by George C. Rable examines Lincoln, Gen. George McClellan and the politics of war. Rable, a professor emeritus at the University of Alabama, wrote the 2003 Lincoln Prize-winning "Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!"

The featured speaker at the Thomas F. Schwartz Symposium Luncheon is Elizabeth Leonard, co-winner of the 2012 Lincoln Prize for her book on Joseph Holt, Lincoln’s Judge Advocate General of the Army and later the chief prosecutor in the trial of the accused conspirators in Lincoln's assassination.

A new book by Leonard, a professor of history at Colby College, chronicles Civil War Gen. Benjamin Butler.

The 11:30 a.m. luncheon is $45.

A roundtable discussion led by Michael Burlingame, Lincoln author and the Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield, will follow the final afternoon session. All four speakers, plus Hamilton and Burlingame, will sign their books from 3 to 4 p.m. at the hotel.

Lincoln-Douglass Banquet

The 103rd Lincoln-Douglass Freedom will be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at 2:45 p.m. March 10.

It is sponsored by Springfield NAACP Branch.

The keynote speaker will be author, motivational speaker and TV personality Dwayne Bryant. He is the author of “The STOP: Improving Police and Community Relations.”

For more information, visit www.springfieldnaacp.org.

ALPLM event

Saturday's event from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the ALPLM features celebrity readers, musical entertainment, a magician, roving sports mascots and interactive activities for children.

There will be activity tables for kids to make special take-home crafts.

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Compass for Kids provides resources and support to underserved children in Springfield public schools.

To donate a new book to Compass for Kids, visit the ALPLM Museum Store or Springfield’s Barnes and Noble bookstore. There is online donation portal at www.compassforkids.org.

There is free admission to the museum on Saturday and Monday.

Lincoln's Home

The Lincoln Home National Historic Site will mark Lincoln's birthday with free events in the Visitor Center, 426 S. Seventh St., on Saturday and Sunday.

Visitors can make a birthday card for Lincoln, take an Instagram-worthy selfie or family photo at the Lincoln Home photo booth, play with some Lincoln-period toys and games or create a Lincoln-themed craft.

The Lincoln Birthday Bash is free and open to the public.

Lincoln Heritage Museum

Visitors to the Lincoln Heritage Museum, 1115 Nicholson Road in Lincoln, can pick up a free cup of coffee and a cookie from 8 to 10 a.m. Monday in celebration of Lincoln's birthday.

Guests can also sit and enjoy reading a book on Lincoln, create a happy birthday card or view the museum's artifacts. Presenters will be on hand dressed as Lincoln and Sarah Bush Lincoln, his stepmother.

Wreath placing at Lincoln's Tomb

Dignitaries from the American Legion will place wreaths at Lincoln’s Tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery at 10:30 a.m. Monday.

Springfield Post 32 is the originator of the National American Legion Pilgrimage to the tomb.

American Legion national commander Daniel J. Seehafer will keynote the Lincoln CommemorationLuncheon at the President Lincoln Hotel at 12:30 p.m. Monday. See www.illegion.org for more details.

Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788; sspearie@sj-r.com; X, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Springfield marks Abraham Lincoln's birthday with lectures, events