WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) -- Next week marks 162 years since Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, freeing enslaved people in Union-occupied areas.
While unofficial, small celebrations began almost immediately, the first organized Emancipation Day celebrations in North Carolina were taking place by 1865 in New Bern.
The day of observance included a parade through the main streets of the city with a band and an escort by the North Carolina Heavy Artillery.
Wilmington began holding a day of celebrations and parades on January 1, 1866. This came the first year after the Civil War ended, following the ratification of the 13th Amendment in December of 1865, formally abolishing slavery.
There isn't a ton of information about the exact Emancipation Day events in the Port City from the first year. There wasn't an African American newspaper at the time, and the white-owned papers mentioned it but didn't see the festivities fit to cover.
But a procession did take place throughout the city, with Wilmington's newly-organized black fire companies out in full force with their red shirts and uniforms.
The procession ended up in Hilton Park, where speeches were given to a crowd.
Emancipation Day celbrations became an annual event until January of 1899, right after the Wilmington Massacre and coup of 1898. There was no Emancipation Parade when the day arrived a few months after one of the Port City's darkest days.
Despite the missing year, the community once again celebrated Emancipation Day in 1900, and continued to do so through the 20th century.
A movement was made through the early 21st century for a federal holiday to mark the historic occassion. In 2021, President Joe Biden signed Juneteenth into law on June 19th, the day recognized in 1865 when the Emancipation Proclamation reached all the way to Texas.
Today it's hard to imagine a time when people of all races weren't free to walk the streets of Wilmington. But celebrations should continue to mix the past with the present and the progress made over more than a century.