Emancipation Day Parade:
‘Must Go On’
By Joseph Young
WI Staff Writer
Thursday, April 24, 2008

It is Wednesday, April 16, Emancipation Day. A small band of observers make a pilgrimage to Franklin Square Park in downtown Washington, D.C. where the first Emancipation Day Parade was held in 1866. But this year’s city sponsored Emancipation Day Parade has been cancelled, due in part to Pope Benedict XVI’s visit, according to city officials.
   
“D.C. decided not to organize the march this year,” said Stephanie D. Stokes, secretary of the District of Columbia. “We were concerned about the impact on D.C. resources coupled with the Pope’s visit.”

Stokes added that the District planned a week’s worth of other Emancipation Day activities. Observers at Franklin Square Park, however, took exception to the city’s decision to cancel the parade.

“Cancellation of the Emancipation Day celebration was uncalled for. This was a great injustice,” said GiGi Ransom, vice president of the Pleasant Hill Civic Association.   Thomas Smith of the D.C. Statehood Green Party said there was “no excuse” for the cancellation of the parade.
   
Councilmember Harry “Tommy” Thomas (D-Ward 5) promised the observers that next year, there will be a celebration at Soldiers Home.
  
“The spirit of the community is represented by the few leading the fight,” said Thomas.
 But Thomas and other observers decided that the parade must go on. Emancipation Day activities begin with a spiritual dedication to former slaves. Ayo Handy Kendi, opening with prayer and dressed in slave clothing, gives tribute to former slaves.
   
“We are here to celebrate the ancestors who made this day possible,” said Handy, one of the organizers of the event. “We stand on their shoulders. If it were not for them we would not be here today.”
  
Evoking the issue of full voting rights for District residents, Handy added, “We are still not free.”
  
After the prayer, they broke out in song with the old, Negro spiritual “Oh Freedom,”which was a response to the House of Representatives’ decision not to grant Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) a vote in the House.
 
“Oh freedom/ Oh freedom/ Oh freedom over me.  And before I’d be a slave/ I’d be buried in my grave.  And go home to my Lord and be free.”
    
Next, there is a reenactment of the slaves breaking the chains of slavery on April 16, 1862, when president Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Compensated Emancipation Act, which released 3,100 slaves held in the District of Columbia, making them the first freed slaves in the nation.
  
Each slaveholder was paid up to $300 per enslaved person. The Emancipation Proclamation abolished slavery across the nation nine months later.
 
In her poem, Joyce Robinson-Paul, says the journey is not completed.
  
“We still stride for true freedom, and wait in anticipation.” Following the program, several dozen Emancipation Day observers paraded through downtown.  One observer’s sign reads, “FREE D.C.”

Joseph Young can be reached josephyoung1@msn.com.