The actor talks about Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, the Civil War, and the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States.
When Jeffrey Wright was asked to lend his voice to the narration of a new docuseries on Abraham Lincoln, the actor watched a rough cut and read the words he’d be asked to speak.
And then he was in.
“I love our history, the history of America,” says Wright, a Tony and Emmy winner for his work in “Angels In America,” who’ll soon be seen as Commissioner Gordon in “The Batman.”
“I love to discover, as we often do, that when we examine the history it’s much more complicated, interesting, nuanced than we are previously – often – led to believe,” he says.
“Lincoln’s Dilemma,” the four-part docuseries that premieres on Apple TV+ on Friday, Feb. 18, does all of those things to the common myths around Lincoln, the Civil War, and the emancipation of enslaved people.
“That’s what we discover in this series,” Wright says. “We’re able to track his evolution from the beginning of his presidency to the end, and in a way that for me was quite revealing.
“We generally think of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator, the man who freed the slaves, but he wasn’t always that,” he says. “He was never an abolitionist, not even when he died.
“He was anti-slavery, but only so far,” Wright says. “He was fine preserving slavery in the South if it preserved the Union. And he was resistant to see Black people as his equal.
“He was, as Frederick Douglass, who was a major influence on him, describes him, a White man of his time. Burdened by the race prejudices of his times, but he evolved.”
“Lincoln’s Dilemma” opens not with sepia tones and mournful fiddles, but instead raucous color footage of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the United States Capitol. It’s a signal flare to declare that the series intends to explore parallels between present and past.
Based on the book “Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times” by historian David S. Reynolds, the series includes a wider range of diverse voices than many such documentaries.
In addition to Wright’s narration, actors Bill Camp and Leslie Odom Jr. provide the voices of Lincoln and Douglass, respectively. There are many vintage photographs, and many that feel fresh to the eye, but “Lincoln’s Dilemma” also incorporates a stylish animation to bring to life different stories told.
Among the types of tales told are slave narratives, letters between Black soldiers and their families, and other voices that represent one of the core themes of the series: Free and enslaved Black people alike played a significant role in the emancipation of the enslaved, despite the common misperception that it was Lincoln alone.
Wright says that while Lincoln was never as sensitive to the issues around slavery and emancipation as Black leaders such as Frederick Douglass were, he learned from them, and acted on the knowledge he gained.
“Through his actions, he honored the humanity of men like Frederick Douglass and men and women who were enslaved in the South,” Wright says. “He honored them through his actions through the Emancipation Proclamation and overseeing the ratification of the 13th Amendment.”
Most importantly, he adds, Lincoln eventually accepted the counsel of Douglass and others that Black men should be allowed to join the Union forces to fight the Confederates who would keep them in bondage.
“The inclusion of Blacks in the war effort Douglass saw as critical so that the narrative could not be written that Black people did not have a hand in their own emancipation, which, sadly, is the narrative we’re too often fed,” Wright says.
“There were over 200,000 Black men who served in the Union forces, both in the army and the navy,” he says. “Forty thousand died in the effort. I didn’t even realize that the numbers were great.
“So the series opens up the window to us to this really tragic at times, but also beautiful, treasure of our American history, that only helps us understand better who we are today.”
The present emerges in other parts of the documentary in the debate over the removal of statues, usually of Confederate leaders, but also one of Lincoln with a formerly enslaved man apparently kneeling at his feet.
Lincoln’s assassination just weeks after the end of the war led to the ultimate failure of the Reconstruction, the federal government’s post-Civil War effort to rehabilitate the South, and left unfinished a national reckoning around racism, White supremacy, violence, and discrimination.
The initial promise of a Black electorate that placed Black politicians in state and federal offices was crushed within a few short years, Wright notes.
“You had a wave of resentment and backlash against that progress – that saw the rise of Klan violence, that saw the rise of Jim Crow in the South,” he says. “Much in the same way that we’ve seen a backlash to, I think, what was viewed as an expansion of political power by President Obama’s time in office, and this feeling among certain insecure parts of the country that, ‘Whoa, we’re going too far now.’”
“Lincoln’s Dilemma,” Wright says, makes its connections between then and now to shine a light on a path forward.
“If we go back and we examine that history, it helps us understand where we are today,” he says. “And perhaps if we are aware of that, then we can also find our way through it in a constructive way.”
Wright grew up in Washington D.C. and long ago became familiar with the Lincoln Memorial, which in the century since it was built has become symbolic of the country’s race relations.
But it was just over a decade ago that he first visited the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, located by the U.S. Capitol at the opposite end of the Washington Mall, he says.
“The Grant Memorial has kind of become my favorite memorial in Washington,” Wright says of the statue of the general who led Lincoln’s Union forces to victory in the Civil War. “Because it’s unsung, but also because it’s incredibly beautiful.
“And it’s these two men, Grant on one end of the mall and Lincoln on the other, gazing at one another, binding the country, symbolically, in a way that I think is so powerful,” he says.
Just as his view of the monuments of his hometown has shifted, so too have his feelings about Lincoln.
“Until recently, I don’t think I was able maybe to forgive Lincoln his imperfections,” Wright says. “I was skeptical about his commitment to the rights for Black Americans at his time, and that he was doing it for political expediency.
“But I think I’ve come to a better understanding, and I’ve come to that understanding with the help of Frederick Douglass,” he says. “Reading his takes on Lincoln, and I don’t think there’s anyone’s that surpass his, particularly when it comes to race and Lincoln.
“Douglass describes him as imperfect, but ultimately honorable. He both recognizes that he is a master politician, Lincoln, and he recognizes too that something changes within him.
“In watching our docuseries and being a part of it, and digging down more through the history around it, I’ve come to a warmer appreciation for Lincoln than I had before.”
