Why would we compare Lincoln to King?

Granted... both were great men but we see more and more reference to Lincoln as a friend of the black man. Do we really need to credit a white man with the strides that the black man has gained through the years? No! I believe it was great black men that we have to thank. Fredrick Douglas maybe. Certainly not Lincoln.
It was Fredrick Douglas that gave Lincoln's Emancipation creditability with the black slaves at the time. Other wise it would have just been another political move to win favor for an unpopular war. Does "weapons of mass destruction" ring a bell?

Abolitionists were considered a rouge movement at the time. Lincoln sent his troops to put down abolitionist before the war. And guess who he sent to do this? Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee.
Lincoln had confirmed that the War had nothing to do with slavery.

After the bloody battle of Antietam, support for the War was at a low and there was pressure to end it. Lincoln was a great politician and ceased upon the anti-slavery movement to gain support.

From a British newspaper analyst:

Lincoln, as a result of Antietam, converted the war to a higher plane, again the master politician. He announces the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Of course, it doesn’t free a single slave in revolt, frees only as a war measure and only frees a slaves in states where the Confederacy is in control.

and the same after the War.

...and certainly as many people today do not realize, that the Emancipation Proclamation did nothing to get them their freedom.

So my question is: Does so much racism still exist today that we have to give credit to a white man for the successes of the back race?
Don't get me wrong. Lincoln was a great man and tried hard to bring our nation together, but to him slavery was a political tool not a moral aptitude.
This is evident in his plan for the emancipated slaves. He wanted to send them back to Africa and the Republican plan for reconstruction was non existent.

There are too many real black heroes to waste claims that Lincoln freed the slaves.
I think that Obama's admiration of the man is based solely on Lincoln's endeavor to bring the people of the nation together than on what he did to end slavery.

Obama referenced the 1860 Inaugural Address, in which Lincoln dramatically called on a deeply divided nation to choose peace instead of civil war.

Though civil war does not threaten the nation Obama has been elected to lead, it is nontheless deeply divided. Indeed, partisanship has stalled the political process in recent years.

Will Obama prove to be a post-partisan figure, capable of bringing Democrats and Republicans together, within his cabinet and Congress? Of course, only time will tell.