Emancipation Day

From the Jan. 6, 1911, Nashville Globe

On Monday of this week, January 2, Negroes in most of the Southern States celebrated the emancipation of the slaves. Forty-eight years have elapsed since that memorable day—a little less than half a century—and it is a remarkable progress, that these ex-slaves and their children have made in that space of time. Forty-eight years ago there could not be found a dozen Negro men competent to address an intelligent audience. If Negroes wished to have some one speak words of encouragement to them they had to ask some white friend to deliver the address, but the passing of forty-eight years finds a decided change in affairs. The question now, is not what Negro can be secured to deliver an address on Emancipation Day, but which speaker must be chosen for the occasion?

There is not as much enthusiasm manifested in this day as there should be, and especially is this true on the part of the young Negroes. The tendency to abhor the memory of slavery should be discouraged and the young people should be taught to honor the memories of all these men and women who labored for the abolishment of slavery; they should honor the men who signed the proclamation which gave liberty to over three million souls; they should also honor those men who had the courage to amend the constitution in a way to guarantee liberty to about eight hundred thousand other Negroes who were still being held in bondage after the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed; and finally, the young Negroes should be taught to honor, love and hold as a sacred trust the memories of their mothers and fathers who were beaten with many stripes and suffered death and yet under all of the persecution they continued to commune with the Supreme Ruler of the universe until he, by his divine arrangement caused the bonds of slavery to be broken and all men made free.

As we remember reverently what our liberty cost, so will the giver of that liberty be pleased with your thoughts and deeds, and will make us prosper, but when we forget the source from whence this freedom came we will lose the ways of true development and retrogression will overtake us.

Another feature of this celebration that should receive serious consideration by our ablest thinkers is the conflicting dates. In some sections the day is celebrated in June and in others in August. Right here in Tennessee the Negroes are not together on a date. One day should be agreed upon and every Negro in the country should cease from labor and give that day to praise and thanksgiving.

(Tennessee State Library and Archives)

Editor’s note: Locally, Jan. 1, 1864, was the first date chosen by African Americans to celebrate emancipation, being that the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect exactly one year earlier (and even though the proclamation did not change the status of people enslaved in Tennessee; only those in Confederate States not controlled by the Union Army were freed). Jan. 1 remained the annual celebration date of Emancipation Day for many years, but sometime in the early 1900s the date changed to Aug. 8, which was the date celebrated in East Tennessee since at least 1871. In 2007, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen signed legislation officially designating Aug. 8 as Emancipation Day in the state. In 2021, June 19 was officially designated Juneteenth National Independence Day, a federal holiday set aside to celebrate the abolition of slavery in the United States. The date is based on June 19, 1865, the day General Order No. 3 by Union Army General Gordon Granger proclaimed freedom for enslaved people in Texas.