Eric Cohen, in the August 12, 1996 Weekly Standard, describes a classroom session called "Intergroup Relations/Cultural Awareness Training," attended by disadvantaged youths aged 16 to 24 at the Washington, D.C., Job Corps Center:

"Our black ancestors helped to make America rich," the teacher explains. "We had a hand in the greatness of this country." One black student shouts, "Backbone!" A Latino student wonders, "Then why haven't there been any black presidents?"

The teacher is ready. She's probably faced this query before. "We've had a black president. His name is Abraham Lincoln. His name is Warren Harding. And there are others. Abraham Lincoln's mother was a black slave who sat in the kitchen while Mr. Lincoln took his oath of office. I have a little book that lists them all, all the black presidents."

She pauses, peering out at her class of high-school dropouts. Every one of them seems to be new to this story of Lincoln's mother. The teacher continues, "There is no reason for your mouths to be open. They wouldn't be if you understood the history behind the slavemaster's relationship with the African-American female. No one wants you to know this, but it's there. Just go to any African-American-university library. You just need to read. That's where you get this information."

The reaction is immediate. Intense. "I have been lied to my whole life by people I've trusted," exclaims one enlightened student. "By your teachers!" another commiserates. "That's right," says a third: "His mom was in the kitchen."

[Ed.: President Harding, who came from a strongly abolitionist Ohio family background, was rumored to be part black as part of an unsuccessful whispering campaign against him when he ran for president on the Republican ticket in 1920. That would, of course, also explain President Lincoln's racial designation.

In 1995 the General Accounting Office audited six different Job Corps sites and concluded that a third of enrollees drop out within the first three months, that only 36 percent complete vocational training, and that only about 14 percent of all "terminees" received jobs relating to their training. Despite months of training and placement assistance, the employment rate of the program's participants is only slightly highter than that of non-participants, and the GAO "could not attribute the higher earnings to... training rather than to chance alone." Furthermore, many employers stated that they had not hired students allegedly placed at their businesses, while other nominal employers could not be located.]

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