On January 1, 1863, Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, calling for the abolition of slavery in the unoccupied Confederate states that remained in rebellion against the United States government. Lincoln concluded the document by stating his belief that emancipation would be “an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity.” One hundred years later, African Americans across the nation continued to await the full realization of that “act of justice,” a sentiment reinforced by the tenor of national and local remembrances of the centennial.
Pres. John F. Kennedy appealed to the general public, asking government officials at the federal, state, and local levels to fulfill the legacy of Lincoln’s words by “[dedicating] themselves to completion of the task of assuring that every American…enjoys the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States.” The NAACP encouraged its branches to hold meetings, dinners, pageants, readings, and a number of other celebrations to mark “Emancipation Day” across the country. The group’s leaders added caution to scenes of optimism. In a taped message for Radio Liberty, an American radio station broadcasting in Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe, NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins detailed the many gains made by African Americans since emancipation, but he also used the opportunity to promise that the new year would see “a program to be carried forward vigorously,” implying redoubled efforts to gain civil rights. In a front-page editorial in the Chicago Defender, a major black daily, the paper warned that “the task, after one hundred years, is yet unfinished.” The editors cautioned, “Until and unless we are lifted up to the full glare of the sunlight of democracy, we shall continue to be half free and half slave.”
In Alabama, the state government refused to recognize the memorial, denying funding to groups planning official celebrations, and most major state newspapers failed to note the centennial or any events associated with it. Only the African American community remembered the historic moment. The biggest statewide celebration occurred at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. In front of a capacity crowd, Rev. Raymond Francis Harvey of Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute gave the valedictory address, accompanied by the Hooper High School concert choir and a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation. Harvey recounted the “Macon County Story,” a brief history of the “civic education, voter registration, business development and community improvement” happening at Tuskegee, as an example of the gains made by African Americans in the years since the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. Like others remembering the occasion, Harvey took the opportunity to address the continued struggle of civil rights. He encouraged listeners to seek “the spiritual lift to enable one to overcome the drag of the kingdom of segregation” and to work to make Birmingham “a part of the American dream.”
Emancipation Day came at a crucial point during the civil rights movement. The celebration gave some the opportunity to revisit past successes. Stories like that of Tuskegee provided needed encouragement for activists looking for signs of hope. Yet for many, the South failed to embody the promise of Lincoln’s words. As the Birmingham World noted, “Second class citizenship, a form of up-dated slavery, is still rampant.” Perhaps the most telling response to Emancipation Day came from Julius Hobson, the chairman of Washington, D.C.’s, branch of CORE. Asked if he would join the United States Civil Rights Commission’s official celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation, Hobson responded that he could not, “in good conscience, join a celebration of freedom in the United States which I and no other Negro have ever enjoyed.” For activists like Hobson, the past hundred years had resulted in too few gains, and African Americans remained on “the still too long road to freedom.”
In Alabama, the state government refused to recognize the memorial, denying funding to groups planning official celebrations, and most major state newspapers failed to note the centennial or any events associated with it. Only the African American community remembered the historic moment. The biggest statewide celebration occurred at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. In front of a capacity crowd, Rev. Raymond Francis Harvey of Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute gave the valedictory address, accompanied by the Hooper High School concert choir and a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation. Harvey recounted the “Macon County Story,” a brief history of the “civic education, voter registration, business development and community improvement” happening at Tuskegee, as an example of the gains made by African Americans in the years since the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. Like others remembering the occasion, Harvey took the opportunity to address the continued struggle of civil rights. He encouraged listeners to seek “the spiritual lift to enable one to overcome the drag of the kingdom of segregation” and to work to make Birmingham “a part of the American dream.”
Emancipation Day came at a crucial point during the civil rights movement. The celebration gave some the opportunity to revisit past successes. Stories like that of Tuskegee provided needed encouragement for activists looking for signs of hope. Yet for many, the South failed to embody the promise of Lincoln’s words. As the Birmingham World noted, “Second class citizenship, a form of up-dated slavery, is still rampant.” Perhaps the most telling response to Emancipation Day came from Julius Hobson, the chairman of Washington, D.C.’s, branch of CORE. Asked if he would join the United States Civil Rights Commission’s official celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation, Hobson responded that he could not, “in good conscience, join a celebration of freedom in the United States which I and no other Negro have ever enjoyed.” For activists like Hobson, the past hundred years had resulted in too few gains, and African Americans remained on “the still too long road to freedom.”