MANALAPAN – President Abraham Lincoln, as portrayed by Robert Costello, will visit the Monmouth County Library Headquarters, 125 Symmes Drive, at 1 p.m. Saturday to celebrate the President’s 200th birthday and lead a month-long series of activities tied to Black History month. 

Costello will provide a historical interpretation of the 16th president who authored the Gettysburg address, was the champion of freedom and equality and who led the United States when it was torn apart by the Civil War. He will transport you back to hear about Lincoln’s struggle to be a success after a number of failures and you will laugh at his folksy insights.
 
Following the Lincoln interpretation will be a first-person, living history presentation of Sojourner Truth by Daisy Century at 2 p.m. Saturday. Truth, an anti-slavery activist who walked and preached “God’s truth and plan for salvation,” worked with other abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglas. She participated in the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention with her famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech. This program is courtesy of the Horizons Speakers Bureau of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.
           
The library’s Eastern Branch in Shrewsbury will offer a Small Book Club discussion of James Baldwin’s classic, semi-autobiographical novel “Go Tell It on a Mountain” at 10 a.m. on Feb. 10 and at 7:30 p.m. on Feb 11. The novel examines the role of the Christian Church in the lives of African-Americans, both as a source of repression and as a source of inspiration and community.
           
At 1 p.m. on Feb. 21 at the Library Headquarters you can witness theatre from the heart of African-American culture the Dunbar Repertory Company brings together the two greatest minds of the Civil Rights movement: Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. In this powerful dramatic portrayal, the actors will speak about the lives, philosophies, and times of these two men. The program will also feature orations presented by the New Jersey Orators, musical selections, singing, and poetry reading. Presented and sponsored by the United Families of African Descent, and co-sponsored by the Manalapan Arts Council and the Monmouth County Library. 
           
On display through the entire month at the Library Headquarters will be a case display of documents related to the Civil War. The exhibit is designed to remind viewers of how life must have changed in New Jersey during the Civil War years.

           

As a largely rural state, able-bodied men worked primarily on farms or in agriculture-related businesses and occupations. Almost every family in the state must have had either a family member or a friend who served in the military and whose life was at risk. Many of these soldiers wrote letters back home, a few of which are in the exhibit.

For more information about programs at the Monmouth County Library log onto the county’s Web site at www.visitmonmouth.com