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emancipation

DC Emancipation Day
 

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What is Emancipation Day?

The DC Compensated Emancipation Act of 1862 ended slavery in Washington, DC, freed 3,100 individuals, reimbursed those who had legally owned them and offered the newly freed women and men money to emigrate. It is this legislation, and the courage and struggle of those who fought to make it a reality, that we commemorate every April 16, DC Emancipation Day.

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Runaway Slaves and the Origins of Emancipation in Washington, DC

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Kate Masur, associate professor of History and African American Studies at Northwestern University, and author of An Example for All the Land: Emancipation and the Struggle over Equality in Washington, DC, to be published in paperback this fall, takes us back to the summer and fall of 1861, showing how enslaved people from surrounding Virginia and Maryland helped create a political crisis that led to Congress' famous DC Emancipation Act.

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