The President of the United States issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which became effective on January 1, 1863. The National Museum of African American History and Culture’s collection.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian is commemorating the Emancipation Proclamation’s 160th birthday. An original handwritten signed copy of President Abraham Lincoln’s Executive Order, an early version of a handheld pamphlet of the Emancipation Proclamation, and an original handwritten signed copy of the Thirteenth Amendment are all on display in the museum’s “Slavery and Freedom” exhibition. The museum asks visitors to reflect on the language used in these papers in honour of this important occasion. Two of the most significant papers in American history are the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment. By assuring a more inclusive manifestation of freedom, they assisted the nation in realising the highest ideal of liberty.
Mary Elliott, the museum’s curator of American slavery, stated, “It is crucial that we remember the hard-fought war for liberation and what it took to guarantee freedom for all. “Not every person who was enslaved was freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. However, it laid the groundwork for the journey toward liberation and dealt a significant blow to the institution of slavery. Slavery was finally abolished in the country by the 13th Amendment.
African Americans who were free or held in slavery, abolitionists, and the Emancipation Proclamation started the process that was finished by the 13th Amendment. By amending the Constitution to read, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or in any place subject to their jurisdiction,” the U.S. government abolished slavery on December 6, 1865.
The museum’s public programmes division and the Robert F. Smith Explore Your Family History Center are hosting a screening of the recent Netflix movie Descendant on Saturday, Jan. 7 at 2 p.m. to commemorate the 160th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. The movie follows the search for and retrieval of the Clotilda at Mobile, Alabama, the last known ship to enter the country illegally transporting slaves from Africa. Following the screening, there will be a panel discussion hosted by Elliott with Margaret Brown, the movie’s director, Kern Jackson, its co-writer and co-producer, Veda Tunstall and Joycelyn Davis, two of the Clotilda passengers’ descendants, and executive producer Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson.
