The Original Emancipation Man

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February is the month when we celebrate Presidents’ Day, the holiday that remembers George Washington’s and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays (the formers on the 22nd and latter’s on the 12th). History has proven both men were great and deserve to have their birthday’s recognized. However, I want to focus on Lincoln, referring to him as the Emancipation Man, because he instituted the Emancipation Proclamation. That piece of our history, enacted on New Year’s Day in 1863, declared that all slaves were free men, despite many still enslaved in the South. Lincoln’s writ stated that slaves in the South (Confederate States) would be free if they could make their way to the North (Union States). There is great significance to that last sentence.

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A runaway slave would need to travel any number of miles at great risk to cross into Northern State and become free. The slave who successfully did had to address two key aspects of their new found freedom. First, living a new life required a new manner of thinking. The freed slave had to accept a degree of responsibility to enjoy their freedom. Employment beyond the demands of the plantation might necessitate the acquisition of new skills. Second, the now free individual could not afford to look back, they had a