Who Do You Turn To?
Picture the scene. It’s Civil War America. Women have no right to vote. Across the South, blacks have no rights whatsoever. President Lincoln is assassinated. His widow, Mary Lincoln, is devastated. To whom does she turn?
To a black woman. To Elizabeth Keckley.
In the story of her life, Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House, Elizabeth (1818-1907) explains:
“. . . I have been intimately associated with that lady [Mrs. Lincoln] in the most eventful periods of her life. I have been her confidante . . . I have written with the utmost frankness in regard to her—have exposed her faults as well as given her credit for honest motives.”
Given the inauspicious beginnings of Elizabeth’s life story, her spiritual friendship with Mary Lincoln is staggering.
“My life has been an eventful one. I was born a slave—was the child of slave parents—therefore I came upon the earth free in God-like thought, but fettered in action.”
How did a black woman of that cultural era become confidante to the slain President’s wife? Elizabeth expresses her understanding with Christian humility:
“God rules the universe. I was a feeble
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