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Native News Online welcomed historian, author, and speaker Mark Charles (Diné) to Native Bidaské last Friday to shed light on the complexities of President Abraham Lincoln’s legacy.  

Through speaking engagements, authoring books, and his blog, Reflections from the Hogan, 

Charles teaches history around race, culture, and Christendom to help set the nation on a path of healing and conciliation. 

Charles and Native New Online Publisher Levi Rickert discussed chapters 9 and 10 of the award-winning book he co-authored with Robert Munger Professor of Evangelism Soong-Chan Rah, “Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery.”

“The United States of America has never lost a war that matters,” Charles said Rickert. “We’ve never been invaded, we’ve never given up huge chunks of land, we’ve never been disarmed, we’ve never had a regime change, we’ve never bore the scorn of the global community. As a result, we have written our own history, the United States of America, for 250 years.”

Charles goes on to explain how the American public knows little about the atrocities President Abraham Lincoln committed, detailing massacres of Native American tribes that took place under the direction of Lincoln in the name of Manifest Destiny. 

“Chapters nine and ten [of the book] go into the writings, the sayings, the speeches, the policies, the programs, the actions, the executive orders of Abraham Lincoln that demonstrate he was a blatant, unapologetic, self-proclaimed white supremacist,” Charles explained.

To watch the full interview, visit Native News Online’s YouTube page or watch the video below. 

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