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On January 1, 1866, the third anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans in Hampton and Norfolk celebrated their freedom with parades, speakers, a reading of the proclamation, and a feast. The True Southerner, a radical newspaper…

Newspapers reported that about 20,000 African Americans turned out on April 3, 1866, to celebrate their emancipation in a parade from the fairgrounds to Capitol Square. Although many white Richmonders had expressed anger at the celebration, African…

African Americans cheered as Abraham Lincoln toured the city of Richmond a day after it had been liberated by the United States Army in April 1865.

Brigadier General Robert Huston Milroy (1816–1890), commanding the United States Army units then posted in Winchester, pronounced the Emancipation Proclamation in effect, thereby freeing all enslaved Virginians in Winchester and Frederick…

Thomas Nast drew these scenes as illustrations for Harper's Weekly on January 24, 1863, three weeks after Abraham Lincoln signed his Emancipation Proclamation. This later lithograph was a slightly altered depiction with a portrait of Lincoln in the…

The Thirteenth Amendment formally abolished slavery in the United States.

Standing near the entrance to Hampton University, the Emancipation Oak was the site of Mary Peake's first classroom for the many African Americans who escaped slavery to freedom at Fort Monroe in 1861. In 1863 African Americans gathered there to hear…

Throughout the Civil War thousands of enslaved men, women, and children attained their freedom by seeking refuge with United States troops as they moved across Virginia. They were declared "contraband of war" in May 1861 and Freedmen's Villages grew…

Throughout the Civil War thousands of enslaved men, women, and children attained their freedom by seeking refuge with United States troops as they moved across Virginia. They were declared "contraband of war" in May 1861.