Hello All:
HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH!!!!
When Carter G. Woodson started Negro History Week, now known as Black History Month, he set the date for the second week in February to commemorate two men he admired the most - Frederick Douglas, born February 14, 1818, and Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809 - to honor them for their contribution to Black people during their lifetime, when it was clearly perilous to have done so. In fact, in Lincoln's case, it turned out to be fatal, because he was assassinated by a racist white actor who was part of a group who tried to terrorize Black people into returning to the plantations - John Wilkes Booth.
 |
| Carter G.Woodson who started Negro History Week in the early 1920s |
Many of our Black comedians, unaware of the historical significance, joke that white people gave us the shortest month the year for celebrating our history, without realizing that it an act of self empowerment because Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson was determined that Black people would learn their history and the truth their greatness on their own; not waiting for anyone white to either provide it, or give consent for us to learn it.
Abraham Lincoln is one of the few white men Woodson gave any credence to - not only for the Emancipation Proclamation, but because he wanted to start Black people out with the financial wherewithal they needed to start their lives independently, and sufficient land to do so - hence the 40 acres and a mule. Lincoln did not believe that anyone should be compelled to work and not get paid for the value of that work. He thought slavery was horrible, immoral, and like stealing by benefiting for work you did not do.
I've heard ignorant people say that Lincoln did not free the slaves - but I prefer to rely on Carter G. Woodson, who was closer to those times than we are, and certainly knew our Black history first hand. He studied it in depth, debunking the lies white people told about us, revealing the truths that had long been buried - and making sure we, likewise, did the same. He even wrote a book, THE MIS-EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO - which we read in elementary school - that taught teachers, parents, and students about the value of relevant education.
So for those who try to say Lincoln did not free the slaves, or that he didn't love Black people, I say: Black people should stop being obsessed with whether or not whites "loved" Black people. That's a sickness that is part of our post traumatic slave syndrome where we want our enemy to love us. More importantly, I don't care whether Lincoln loved us, hated us, used the Emancipation Proclamation for a military ploy - or even if he was a great humanitarian. My only thing is that HE DID IT - and if he hadn't, we might still to this day be under the boot of the slave monsters. Lincoln and Frederick Douglass were friends. It used to gall the white congressmen to see him come to the White House and have access to the president that they couldn't get. They collaborated, they argued, they negotiated and they planned. Between the two of them, and other White House staff and consultants, the Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. He did it in a way that Black people in the heart of the deep south would be freed. He started with the rebellious south, but the plan was that it would become the law of the land. Also remember, Lincoln founded the Original Republican Party to be an anti-slavery party - the Wigs and Tories couldn't figure it out. (Note: The Elephant, which was the mascot, was chosen because of strength, family, and the fact that it never forgot. Everybody in the Original Republican Party were against slavery. Some of them wanted to return our brothers and sisters to Africa, others wanted to give them what they needed to make a home for themselves in the US. Lincoln gave Black spokespersons an option shortly before signing the Emancipation Proclamation, to return home to Africa, or remain in the US. They opted to remain in the US. I don't know if that was a smart move on their part - thousands had returned to Liberia under President Monroe and were thriving (or appeared to be).
When people say Lincoln did not free the slaves - they forget that, whether we think he did or not, his crazy cracker redneck racists family of whites definitely thought he did - which is why he paid the ultimate price of a bullet to the back of his head as he sat with his wife and family, at the Ford Theatre in DC - an act of total cowardice, and an act of racist revenge leveled against him for helping Black people. Also remember the reason his executive order was not fully carried out was because his racist vice president, Andrew Johnson, reversed it and refused to carry it through.
But he couldn't put us back on the plantation - we were already beginning to march forward to make our way in the world. And despite their efforts to suppress it, or make it look like we were incompetent and incapable, Carter G. Woodson found a way to teach our to love and respect ourselves, and it was inspired by President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
So HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO PRESIDENT ABRAHAM "HONEST ABE"LINCOLN
The Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation (page 1) Record Group 11 General Records of the United StatesDespite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the United States, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy (the Southern secessionist states) that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union (United States) military victory.
Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Americans and fundamentally transformed the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the Proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.
From the first days of the Civil War, slaves had acted to secure their own liberty. The Emancipation Proclamation confirmed their insistence that the war for the Union must become a war for freedom. It added moral force to the Union cause and strengthened the Union both militarily and politically. As a milestone along the road to slavery's final destruction, the Emancipation Proclamation has assumed a place among the great documents of human freedom.
The original of the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, is in the National Archives in Washington, DC. With the text covering five pages the document was originally tied with narrow red and blue ribbons, which were attached to the signature page by a wafered impression of the seal of the United States. Most of the ribbon remains; parts of the seal are still decipherable, but other parts have worn off.
The document was bound with other proclamations in a large volume preserved for many years by the Department of State. When it was prepared for binding, it was reinforced with strips along the center folds and then mounted on a still larger sheet of heavy paper. Written in red ink on the upper right-hand corner of this large sheet is the number of the Proclamation, 95, given to it by the Department of State long after it was signed. With other records, the volume containing the Emancipation Proclamation was transferred in 1936 from the Department of State to the National Archives of the United States.
The Emancipation Proclamation
This is a copy of the original handwritten version of the
Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln - 1862
Transcript of the Proclamation
January 1, 1863A Transcription
By the President of the United States of America:
A Proclamation.
Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
"That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States."
Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.
By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
The Emancipation Proclamation
An Act of Justice
Summer 1993, Vol. 25, No. 2By John Hope Franklin
 |
President Abraham Lincoln (NARA, 64-M-163) |
Thursday, January 1, 1863, was a bright, crisp day in the nation's capital. The previous day had been a strenuous one for President Lincoln, but New Year's Day was to be even more strenuous. So he rose early. There was much to do, not the least of which was to put the finishing touches on the Emancipation Proclamation. At 10:45 the document was brought to the White House by Secretary of State William Seward. The President signed it, but he noticed an error in the superscription. It read, "In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my name and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed." The President had never used that form in proclamations, always preferring to say "In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand. . . ." He asked Seward to make the correction, and the formal signing would be made on the corrected copy.
 |
| John Hope Franklin |
The traditional New Year's Day reception at the White House began that morning at 11 o'clock. Members of the Cabinet and the diplomatic corps were among the first to arrive. Officers of the Army and Navy arrived in a body at half past 11. The public was admitted at noon, and then Seward and his son Frederick, the Assistant Secretary of State, returned with the corrected draft. The rigid laws of etiquette held the President to his duty for 3 hours, as his secretaries Nicholay and Hay observed. "Had necessity required it, he could of course have left such mere social occupation at any moment," they pointed out, "but the President saw no occasion for precipitancy. On the other hand, he probably deemed it wise that the completion of this momentous executive act should be attended by every circumstance of deliberation."
After the guests departed, the President went upstairs to his study for the signing in the presence of a few friends. No Cabinet meeting was called, and no attempt was made to have a ceremony. Later, Lincoln told F. B. Carpenter, the artist, that as he took up the pen to sign the paper, his hand shook so violently that he could not write. "I could not for a moment control my arm. I paused, and a superstitious feeling came over me which made me hesitate. . . . In a moment I remembered that I had been shaking hands for hours with several hundred people, and hence a very simple explanation of the trembling and shaking of my arm." With a hearty laugh at his own thoughts, the President proceeded to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. Just before he affixed his name to the document, he said, "I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right than I do in signing this paper."
When I made my first serious study of this document, several copies of the December 30 draft were in existence. The copies of Cabinet officers Edward Bates, Francis Blair, William Seward, and Salmon P. Chase were in the Library of Congress. The draft that the President worked with on December 31 and the morning of New Year's Day is considered the final manuscript draft. The principal parts of the text are written in the President's hand. The two paragraphs from the Preliminary Proclamation of September 22, 1862, were clipped from a printed copy and pasted on to the President's draft, "merely to save writing." The superscription and the final closing are in the hand of a clerk in the Department of State. Later in the year, Lincoln presented his copy to the ladies in charge of the Northwestern Fair in Chicago. He told them that he had some desire to retain the paper, "but if it shall contribute to the relief and comfort of the soldiers, that will be better," he said most graciously. Thomas Bryan purchased it and presented it to the Soldiers' Home in Chicago, of which he was president. The home was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Fortunately, four photographic copies of the original had been made. The official engrossed document is in the National Archives and follows Lincoln's original copy.
It is worth observing that there was no mention, in the final draft, of Lincoln's pet schemes of compensation and colonization, which were in the Preliminary Proclamation of September 22, 1862. Perhaps Lincoln was about to give up on such impracticable propositions. In the Preliminary Proclamation, the President had said that he would declare slaves in designated territories "thenceforward, and forever free." In the final draft of January 1, 1863, he was content to say that they "are, and henceforward shall be free." Nothing had been said in the preliminary draft about the use of blacks as soldiers. In the summer of 1862 the Confiscation Act had authorized the President to use blacks in any way he saw fit, and there had been some limited use of them in noncombat activities. In stating in the Proclamation that former slaves were to be received into the armed services, the President believed that he was using congressional authority to strike a mighty blow against the Confederacy.
It was late afternoon before the Proclamation was ready for transmission to the press and others. Earlier drafts had been available, and some papers, including the Washington Evening Star had used those drafts, but it was at about 8 p.m. on January 1 that the transmission of the text over the telegraph wires actually began.
Young Edward Rosewater, scarcely 20 years old, had an exciting New Year's Day. He was a mere telegraph operator in the War Department, but he knew the President and had gone to the White House reception earlier that day and had greeted him. When the President made his regular call at the telegraph office that evening, young Rosewater was on duty and was more excited than ever. He greeted the President and went back to his work. Lincoln walked over to see what Rosewater was sending out. It was the Emancipation Proclamation! If Rosewater was excited, the President seemed the picture of relaxation. After watching the young operator for a while, the President went over to the desk of Tom Eckert, the chief telegraph operator in the War Department, sat in his favorite chair, where he had written most of the Preliminary Proclamation the previous summer, and gave his feet the proper elevation. For him, it was the end of a long, busy, but perfect day.
 |
| A Union soldier reads the Emancipation Proclamation to newly freed slaves. After Lincoln signed the Proclamation, celebrations took place throughout the country. (NARA, 79-CWC-3F8) |
In New York the news of the Proclamation was received with mixed feelings. Blacks looked and felt happy, one reporter said, while abolitionists "looked glum and grumbled . . . that the proclamation was only given on account of military necessity." Within a week, however, there were several large celebrations in which abolitionists took part. At Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, the celebrated Henry Ward Beecher preached a commemorative sermon to an overflow audience. "The Proclamation may not free a single slave," he declared, "but it gives liberty a moral recognition." There was still another celebration at Cooper Union on January 5. Several speakers, including the veteran abolitionist Lewis Tappan, addressed the overflow audience. Music interspersed the several addresses. Two of the renditions were the "New John Brown Song" and the "Emancipation Hymn."
 |
Ralph Waldo Emerson proclaimed, "Today unbind the captive," in his reading of the "Boston Hymn." (NARA, 111-BA-1113) |
The trenchant observation by Douglass that the Emancipation Proclamation was but the first step could not have been more accurate. Although the Presidential decree would not free slaves in areas where the United States could not enforce the Proclamation, it sent a mighty signal both to the slaves and to the Confederacy that enslavement would no longer be tolerated. An important part of that signal was the invitation to the slaves to take up arms and participate in the fight for their own freedom. That more than 185,000 slaves as well as free blacks accepted the invitation indicates that those who had been the victims of thraldom were now among the most enthusiastic freedom fighters.
Meanwhile, no one appreciated better than Lincoln the fact that the Emancipation Proclamation had a quite limited effect in freeing the slaves directly. It should be remembered, however, that in the Proclamation he called emancipation "an act of justice," and in later weeks and months he did everything he could to confirm his view that it was An Act of Justice. And no one was more anxious than Lincoln to take the necessary additional steps to bring about actual freedom. Thus, he proposed that the Republican Party include in its 1864 platform a plank calling for the abolition of slavery by constitutional amendment. When he was "notified" of his renomination, as was the custom in those days, he singled out that plank in the platform calling for constitutional emancipation and pronounced it "a fitting and necessary conclusion to the final success of the Union cause." Early in 1865, when Congress sent the amendment to Lincoln for his signature, he is reported to have said, "This amendment is a King's cure for all the evils. It winds the whole thing up."
Despite the fact that the Proclamation did not emancipate the slaves and surely did not do what the Thirteenth Amendment did in winding things up, it is the Proclamation and not the Thirteenth Amendment that has been remembered and celebrated over the past 130 years. That should not be surprising. Americans seem not to take to celebrating legal documents. The language of such documents is not particularly inspiring, and they are the product of the deliberations of large numbers of people. We celebrate the Declaration of Independence, but not the ratification of the Constitution. Jefferson's words in the Declaration moved the emerging Americans in a way that Madison's committee of style failed to do in the Constitution.
Thus, almost annually--at least for the first hundred years--each New Year's Day was marked in many parts of the country by a grand celebration. Replete with brass band, if there was one, an African-American fire company, if there was one, and social, religious, and civic organizations, African Americans of the community would march to the courthouse, to some church, or the high school. There, they would assemble to hear the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, followed by an oration by a prominent person. The speeches varied in character and purpose. Some of them urged African Americans to insist upon equal rights; some of them urged frugality and greater attention to morals; while still others urged their listeners to harbor no ill will toward their white brethren.
As the 50th anniversary of the Proclamation approached, James Weldon Johnson, already a writer of some distinction, was serving a tour of duty as U.S. Consul in Corinto, Nicaragua. His biographer, Eugene Levy, tells us that Johnson for some time had considered writing a poem commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. In September 1912, when he read of the ceremonies marking the Preliminary Proclamation, he realized that he had only 100 days in which to write the poem. Using all of his spare time, of which there was little, Johnson hammered out "Fifty Years." There was not enough time to publish it in one of the major literary monthly journals, so he turned to the New York Times, which published it on its editorial page on January 1, 1913.
Addressing his fellow African Americans in the first stanzas, Johnson said:
O Brothers mine, to-day we standIn the second half of the Proclamation's first century, the annual celebrations diminished in extent as well as in fervor. Some celebrants, with an eye on a quick buck, began to promote June 19, the day on which President Lincoln signed a bill abolishing slavery in the territories. The bill did not apply to Texas, which was a state in the Confederacy, but slick promoters there soon drew attention to that day and persuaded Texans, Oklahomans, and others in the Southwest that this was indeed the day of emancipation. It was never quite clear to me, moreover, why we in Oklahoma celebrated August 4 as well as Juneteenth and January 1, but clearly the summer months had many advantages over a January observance.
Where half a century sweeps our ken,
Since God, through Lincoln's ready hand,
Struck off our bonds and made us men. Just fifty years--a winter's day--
As runs the history of a race;
Yet, as we look back o'er the day,
How distant seems our starting place!
Then, in a more assertive tone, making certain that humility did not replace self-confidence, he said:
This land is ours by right of birth,
This land is ours by right of toil
We helped to turn its virgin earth,
Our sweat is in its fruitful soil.
To gain these fruits that have been earned,
To hold these fields that have been won,
Our arms have strained, our backs have burned,
Bent bare beneath a ruthless sun.
Then should we speak but servile words,
Or shall we hang our heads in shame?
Stand back of new-come foreign hordes,
And fear our heritage to claim?
No! stand erect and without fear,
And for our foes let this suffice--
We've bought a rightful sonship here,
And we have more than paid the price. . . .
That for which millions prayed and sighed
That for which tens of thousands fought,
For which so many freely died,
God cannot let it come to naught.
Something else was diluting the celebrations of the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. It was bad enough that a casual reading of the Proclamation made clear that it did not set the slaves free. It was also clear that neither the Reconstruction amendments nor the legislation and Executive orders of subsequent years had propelled African Americans much closer to real freedom and true equality. The physical violence, the wholesale disfranchisement, and the widespread degradation of blacks in every conceivable form merely demonstrated the resourcefulness and creativity of those white Americans who were determined to deny basic constitutional rights to their black brothers.
Several years before 1963, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People began to use the motto "Free by '63." Other groups adopted the motto and focused more attention on the drive for equality. Many leaders were especially sensitive to the significance of the Emancipation Centennial in pointing up racial inequality in American life. On September 22, 1962, when Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York spoke in Washington to mark the opening of the exhibit of the Preliminary Proclamation, "the state's most treasured possession," he said, "the very existence of the document stirs our conscience with the knowledge that Lincoln's vision of a nation truly fulfilling its spiritual heritage is not yet achieved."
During the centennial year itself, the United States Commission on Civil Rights presented to the President a report on the history of civil rights, most of which I wrote on contract with the Commission. Knowing that I would be out of the country during most of the centennial year, I published my history of the Emancipation Proclamation as my contribution to the observance.* On Lincoln's birthday in 1963, President and Mrs. Kennedy received more than a thousand black and white citizens at the White House and presented to each of them a copy of the report of the Civil Rights Commission, called Freedom to the Free. Speaking at Gettysburg later that year, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson said, "Until justice is blind, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact." President Kennedy took note of the absence of equality when he said, "Surely, in 1963, 100 years after emancipation, it should not be necessary for any American citizen to demonstrate in the streets for an opportunity to stop at a hotel, or eat at a lunch counter . . . on the same terms as any other customer."
Although it is now possible for most African Americans to eat at a lunch counter in most parts of the United States, the extension of these civilities has been accompanied by subtle, yet barbarous forms of discrimination. These forms extend from redlining in the sale of real estate to discrimination in employment to the maladministration of justice. In issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and wording it as he did, Lincoln went as far as he felt the law permitted him to go. In subsequent months he went a bit further, inch by inch, until before his death he was calling for the enfranchisement of some blacks. The difference between the position of Lincoln in 1863 and Americans in 1993 is that our leaders in high places seem not to have either the humanity or the courage of Lincoln. The law itself is no longer an obstruction to justice and equality, but it is the people who live under the law who are themselves an obvious obstruction to justice. One can only hope that sooner rather than later we can all find the courage to live under the spirit of the Emancipation Proclamation and under the laws that flowed from its inspiration.
This essay is based on a talk given by John Hope Franklin at the National Archives, January 4, 1993, on the occasion of the 130th anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
*The Emancipation Proclamation (Garden City, NW: Doubleday and Company, 1963; reprint, Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1994).
John Hope Franklin has taught at Fisk University, the University of Chicago, and most recently, Duke University, where he is James B. Duke Professor of History Emeritus. Past president of the American Historical Association and the Society of Phi Beta Kappa, his publications include From Slavery to Freedom (1947), The Emancipation Proclamation (1963), and Race and History: Selected Essays, 1938-1988 (1990).
NOTE: John Hope Franklin was born in Rentiesville, Oklahoma - an All Black Town -which still exists today as one the 13 remaining of 67 originally All Black Towns - GDW 02/12/2020
Articles published in Prologue do not necessarily represent the views of NARA or of any other agency of the United States Government.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863
"When you are dead and in Heaven, in a thousand years that
action of yours will make the Angels sing your praises."
Hannah Johnson, mother of a Northern Black soldier,
writing to President Abraham Lincoln about the Emancipation Proclamation,
July 31, 1863
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation
on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody
civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves"
within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."
Despite that expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation
was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from
the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also
expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under
Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon
Union military victory.
Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately
free a single slave, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions
of African Americans, and fundamentally transformed the character of the
war from a war for the Union into a war for freedom. Moreover, the proclamation
announced the acceptance of black men into the Union army and navy, enabling
the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000
black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.
For more about the Emancipation Proclamation please visit:
Emancipation Proclamation
|
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/dc-emancipation-act
THERE IS SO MUCH TO LEARN AND UNDERSTAND ABOUT OUT HISTORY - THE TRIALS, TRIBULATIONS, TRAGEDIES AND TRIUMPHS - We have to do our own homework - but after you learn it, do like Carter G. Woodson, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, John Henrick Clarke, and so many others and teach your children and other family members and neighbors. Don't allow their distortions or our ignorance to continue.
NOW THAT YOU KNOW
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
Stay Blessed &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
 |
| Gloria Dulan-Wilson |
-->
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank YOU For Visiting Gloria Dulan-Wilson Eclectic Black People VIP Blog. We Would Like Your Views, Interests And Perspectives. Please Leave A Comment Below.