Brilliant history/comedy by The Amber Ruffin Show explaining why Americans desperately need a White History Month:

I do feel the need to point out her citation of Lincoln, while true, evades the important context of his speech.

First, after being repeatedly fraudulently bashed by his political opponents as someone who would dare to marry blacks to whites (narratives about protecting white women from black men is a long-time propaganda method), Lincoln said he was racist enough to not do the things he was being accused. It wasn’t his best moment to be sure and there’s no excusing it, but you have to understand he was saying in his experience he didn’t see whites and blacks as equals. He still was an abolitionist, just a racist one.

Second, this attitude changed dramatically after he became President. Like President Grant, who often reflected on where he had made mistakes and who worked to overcome and amend them, Lincoln came to regard blacks as equals. So the context is really a terrible defense he used in the heat of contest to prove he was worthy of votes even by racist Americans, which reverses completely into a story of him emancipating slaves and (through new experiences) finally describing blacks as equal to whites.