Reaction to "The Civil War in 'Postracial' America"

When reading "The Civil War in 'Postracial' America" the last passage really stuck out to me. Foner describes a Paris monument dedicated to the victims of slavery. The inscription reads: "By their struggles and their strong desire for dignity and liberty, the slaves of the French colonies contributed to the universality of human rights and to the ideal of liberty, equality, and fraternity that is the foundation of our republic." I love this because it actually keeps the focus on the people forced into slavery and commends their bravery. I think that in America, we tend to focus so much on Lincoln being the savior of slaves that we don't focus enough on the actual victims of slavery. We should focus more on Black abolitionists rather than White ones. This is an example of the "white savior complex" commonly seen in the media (read more about it here: http://spectrummagazine.org/review/2009/12/07/hollywoods-white-savior-complex). Even today, we have to act like White people save Black people from racism instead of viewing Black people as autonomous beings who worked towards their own emancipation.