An NPR Morning Edition cohost and a California professor will be at University of Illinois Springfield next month to examine how Abraham Lincoln navigated political conflict and to apply those lessons to today's America. They will make their case in presenting the popular Lincoln Legacy Lecture at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 12 in the UIS Student Union.
Steve Inskeep, cohost of Morning Edition, and Sarah E. Anderson, professor at University of California at Santa Barbara, will be the featured speakers at this year's Mary and James Beaumont Endowed Lincoln Legacy Lecture Series.
Inskeep researched how often Lincoln engaged with those who disagreed with him and documented his findings in a recent book, Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America. He examines Lincoln's life through 16 encounters with individuals, some well-known, some obscure. Most of these stories occurred with a person who differed from Lincoln, and readers learn something about Lincoln's style and higher-level principles from each one.
A reviewer, Christine D. Jansen, said Inskeep's take on Lincoln's model of leadership, rooted in constructive engagement, empathy and unity, offers a workable approach to division and gridlock.
"In our own divisive times, during an election year no less, Inskeep's work reminds us that we can have political disagreements without hating each other and without sacrificing the core principles of the republic," said Jacob Friefeld, director of the UIS Center for Lincoln Studies, which sponsors the lecture along with NPR Illinois.
Anderson, who is also associate dean of diversity, equity and inclusion at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UC-Santa Barbara, has a recent book in which she focuses on why legislators often reject compromise. Her book, Rejecting Compromise: Legislators' Fear of Primary Voters, was shaped by her experience as a U.S. congressman's legislative assistant in Washington, D.C.
The annual Lincoln Legacy Lecture, launched in 2002, always has a topic that Lincoln addressed "and that we still grapple with today," said Barbara Ferrara, the retired associate director of the UIS Center for State Policy and Leadership. She coordinated the series of lectures from 2002 to 2016. Previous topics have included Lincoln and race, presidential campaign politics and voting rights. The first one was presented the evening before the dedication of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in November 2002 in downtown Springfield.
"One of the achievements of the UIS Lincoln Legacy Lecture Series is that its reputation led the Lincoln Funeral Coalition to invite UIS to organize and host a scholarly symposium in conjunction with the Lincoln funeral in Springfield," Ferrara said, referring to the event held in 2015 on the 150th anniversary of his death.
That year, more than 650 people attended the symposium on campus, "Mourning Father Abraham: Lincoln's Assassination and the Public's Response." The event featured historians Michael Burlingame of UIS, Martha Hodes of New York University and Louis Masur of Rutgers University. Hodes's nationally acclaimed book from Yale University Press, Mourning Lincoln, had just been published, documenting a wide range of national reactions to Lincoln's assassination, including from people who rejoiced that Lincoln had been killed.
Among the local UIS scholars participating in and planning the Lincoln Legacy Lecture over the years, besides Burlingame, were Phillip Paludan, Cullom Davis and Steven Schwark. The lecture series, now endowed by Mary and James Beaumont, has become a cornerstone of the UIS Center for Lincoln Studies, which opened in 2021.
Ed Wojcicki freelances from Springfield after retiring from University of Illinois Springfield and the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police.
