Press contact: Kyla Kruse

SPRINGFIELD – Lincoln Land Community College invites the public to its annual Lincoln Lecture Monday, Feb. 12. 

“Abraham Lincoln and the Making of the American West” will be presented by Jacob K. Friefeld at 9 a.m. in the Trutter Center on the LLCC campus. The presentation will also be available via Zoom (https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89790657720). 

Friefeld will discuss Lincoln’s legacy in the West and the Homestead Act of 1862, enriching the conventional story of who settled the West. He will explore how the Homestead Act can be seen as one of the most important social policies ever enacted in the United States and that it 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.

There is no charge to attend, and refreshments will be served. 

Friefeld is the director of the Center for Lincoln Studies at University of Illinois Springfield. His new book, “The First Migrants,” tells the story of Black Americans who left the South between 1877 and the Great Migration and went west seeking land and freedom. His first book, “Homesteading the Plains: Toward a New History,” examines the Homestead Act of 1862.

LLCC Outreach Centers in Jacksonville, Beardstown, Taylorville and Litchfield also plan various Lincoln-themed activities to commemorate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.