The Emancipation Proclamation

" If you hold to my teaching, . . . . then, you will know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free. . ."  [John 8: 32].

In the United States, February is Black History Month. This is a month-long celebration of black Americans who have made an indelible contribution to this country. In the month of February, we commemorate the strength of African Americans, who for 200 years in America, never had a properly recognized recorded history.

Part of that history was the American Civil War, fiercely fought over the issue of slavery. On January 1, 2013, America celebrated the 150th anniversary of The Emancipation Proclamation.

Every school child in America studies this Proclamation. We applaud President Lincoln as a hero, someone who is regarded as close to sainthood, because of  his role in ensuring the abolition of slavery in America.

Everyone in America recites that "Lincoln freed all the slaves". . . .

Or did he?

There are a lot of misconceptions about The Emancipation Proclamation.

Recently, I had the honor of attending a lecture about the Proclamation, by Dr. Lois Brown, PhD, Professor of African American Studies, and Professor of English, at Wesleyan University.

I have to say that sometimes I give in to the stereotype that historians are old white men, who speak in erudite tones, but who, nevertheless, seem to be. . . . well. . . . irrelevant.

But shame on me!-- because, Dr. Brown is young AND African American AND a woman. And she makes history come alive.

She corrected several of my misperceptions about The Emancipation Proclamation.

First, she pointed out that the title of this Proclamation is simply: "By The President of the United States of America: A Proclamation".  Nowhere does it mention, "Emancipation" in the title.

Then, I always thought that this document came at the end of the very bloody Civil War (which Frederick Douglass called, " The Abolition War"; and which the British very delicately called, "The War Between the States") .  I thought that this Proclamation settled the issue of slavery, once and for all.

Wrong again.

The Proclamation came on January 1, 1863, when the Civil War was already raging. America had been a country at war against itself, since 1861.  According to Dr. Brown, the Proclamation came to be seen by the Confederacy as an Act of War.

And I thought that The Proclamation did set all of the slaves free.

Wrong again.

The Proclamation states: " On the first day of January, [1863], all persons held as slaves within any State, the people whereof shall be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward
and forever free:

EXCEPT for:   [In] Lousiana, 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, and [in] 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."

In addition, history shows that four border states, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri, never seceded and so, not being "in rebellion", were never subject to the Proclamation at all.

And, all of the places that were exempt were the places with the most harsh and extreme conditions of slavery! I find this shocking and heartbreaking. . . .

Dr. Brown pointed out that, up until the last moment, no one was certain that Lincoln would even sign the Proclamation. And so, in her words, the reading of the Proclamation became like a "roll-call". Some State's slaves won their freedom; while some States were exempt.

[Was President Lincoln being strategic, not wanting to throw gasoline on an already raging Civil War? Or, was he trying to merely contain slavery? After all, he had campaigned in 1860 on a platform to simply disallow slavery in new territories out West; but to keep the states of slavery intact, otherwise.]

What strikes me as remarkable, though, is that the African American community at the time celebrated, with joy, the announcement of the Proclamation! As markedly limited as this document was, making three million slaves free, but leaving one million still enslaved, it was after all Freedom!

I think about Freedom and forgiveness oftentimes, myself. In my harsh and sometimes cruel family, I longed for freedom. I planned for it. I put aside money, and secretly read by the hour in my room, in order to make myself smarter than my "captors" were.

And yet, on the day my mother died (and she was the second one to pass on), I felt no freer than I had felt during my childhood. Surely, the door to my prison had opened. But I am still, in many ways, a prisoner inside my cave.

There was a eureka moment at Dr. Brown's lecture, when someone asked, "Did the African Americans at the time feel that Lincoln had any remorse for the severe limitations of his Proclamation?"

And Dr. Brown shot back, " If you are waiting for remorse, you will never be free!"

I took this to heart. Becoming free is not always a sudden and miraculous alchemy, where in an instant, you feel totally unfettered. Becoming free is a Walk.

Achieving freedom, at some point, becomes not about what the other person felt or did or intended, or even who he was. . . .. Freedom is about who YOU can become, despite all those burdens of past captivity!

Freedom comes from figuring out what to do about forgiveness. Forgiveness is a process of letting go. I am trying to focus now on, not only forgiving those who hurt me deeply, but also on letting go of my despair over what I have lost. Only then, can I embrace what I can become.

[Related Posting: "Celebrating My Independence", July 4, 2012.]
 
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