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To the Editor:

“…The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we were highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” (Gettysburg Address: November 19, 1863)

The aforementioned noteworthy words were part of a speech President Lincoln delivered at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania during the Civil War, sometimes referred to as the “Brother’s War.”

This battle marked a major turning point of the war between the Union’s Army of the Potomac and the Confederacy’s Army of Northern Virginia. It hastened the end of the war, which was a humiliation for General Robert E. Lee, who surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865.

Of course, Lincoln paid the ultimate price when he was assassinated by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth while enjoying a play at Ford’s Theatre in 1865.

According to Google, the Union suffered 23,049 casualties, including 3,155 killed; 14,529 wounded; and 5,365 missing or captured. On the other hand, the Confederacy suffered 28,063 casualties, including 3,903 killed; 18,735 wounded; and 5,425 missing or captured.

Within the context of Black History Month, Lincoln is admired, immensely, by Blacks and others who detested the “peculiar institution” of slavery, which lasted in America for almost 300 years. From the firing at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, precipitating the beginning of the Civil War where over 600,000 Americans perished, to April 9, 1865, the “Divided States of America” were in great peril. In any event, without Lincoln’s courage, smarts, and determination, slavery may have extended into the 20th Century and beyond.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders recently reminded us of the dangers of oligarchy and authoritarianism. Also, he decried the billionaires who use the masses for personal gains.

If Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, I believe he would agree with Sanders about how big money, thanks to the 2010 Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court, negatively impacts governance. King, undoubtedly, would criticize the fact that the wealthiest three Americans, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg own more wealth than the bottom half of our society—over 165 million people.

Dr. King, like many other Black leaders, like Fannie Lou Hamer (voting and human rights advocate and organizer), Thurgood Marshall (Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1967 to 1991), Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., would articulate and accentuate the need for a more egalitarian society.

Keith W. Cooper

Greenville, NC