Lincoln
The CNN special on him rekindled my interest.
When I was a freshman in college I chose to do a term paper on Lincoln. It was then I discovered he used the N word, made demeaning jokes about African Americans, and said upon their freedom they should be repatriated back to Africa. I stopped there. In the fullness of time, I realized how hollow an assessment of a giant of a man that was. He grew, he saw how hard freed slaves fought for the Union, he saw the possibility of the freedman in his friendship with Frederick Douglass, and at the time of his martyrdom, he was the best friend of the freedman to have walked this earth.
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our lives--without looking at the fullness of those lives and evolution-- when present.
That said, we have a danger making that less likely or possible today, given the forever haunting nature of social media and posts made in haste or in anger or with significant regrets--years later. It seems a strange thing to bring up in context with our evaluations/reevaluations of Lincoln and other historical giants, but I can't help but wonder if we preempt such reassessments and whether or not that is harmful in the long run. 
