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Monday, Feb. 14, 2022

Was Abraham Lincoln a man of color who changed his identity to avoid being lynched?

Sarah Thompson, Lead Stories

no

There's a photo of a man with a long, gaunt face and a beard who appears to be a man of color. He has often been identified as President Abraham Lincoln.

The man pictured is an unidentified person who sat for a portrait by Augustus Washington, a free man of color who worked as a daguerreotypist. Washington was born in New Jersey and emigrated to Liberia in 1853, where he took portraits of African American emigres, such as the one pictured, who returned to Africa.

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