USA TODAY Editor’s note: On Jan. 26, San Francisco school board officials voted to change the name of Abraham Lincoln High School. Schools will have until April to offer new names, which will then be voted on by board members. The claim: San Francisco will rename Abraham Lincoln High School because he did not show 'black lives mattered to him' Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States. He led the Union through the Civil War, and freed most of the nation's slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation. In recent days, users have taken to social media to criticize efforts to remove his name from a high school in San Francisco.