Emancipation Proclamation

150^th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and

 Night Watch Tradition of the American Black Church

Cincinnati, OH—On January 1, 2013, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Interdenominational Ministers’ Alliance will co-sponsor a historic celebration of the 150^th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.  The event that includes music, speakers and awards presentations, will be held at the Freedom Center, at 50 E. Freedom Way, Cincinnati, OH  45202, at 11:00 a.m. on New Year’s Day. Clergy are invited to be a part of the program’s processional at 10:45 a.m., wearing the vestments of their choice.  Singers and choir members are welcome to participate in the mass choir and asked to wear black and white and arrive no later than 10:15 a.m.  Following the event, program participants are welcome to stay for a free tour of the museum.  Mr. Carl Westmoreland, the event speaker and noted historian and educator, wrote of Watch Night and the Emancipation Proclamation: 

“Watch Night would become a unique creation, a product of Africans in America, who were responding to the announcement President Abraham Lincoln made to Congress after the 1862 battle at Antietam, Maryland, that he would emancipate enslaved people from the states that were in rebellion to the United States, on January 1863. The Black church became the theological channel through which 250 years of hoped for deliverance would be dressed in the worship style unique to Africans in America.  The Black church in the North, the slave streets on the plantations of the South, the Parade Ground of the first South Carolina African troop at Beaufort, South Carolina, became places where Blacks celebrated their emancipation.  It was in the Black church where the watching, the praying, the waiting for midnight took on its own style that continues to today… and is reflected in song and prayer across America:

“Watchman from the East, what time is it?”

“It is 3 minutes to Midnight, and all is well.”

“Watchman from the West, what time is it?”

“It is 2 minutes to Midnight and all is well.”

“Watchman to the South, what time is it?”

“It is 1 minute to Midnight, and all is well.”

“Watchman to the North, what time is it?”

“It’s Midnight, It’s Midnight.”

This event is free and open to the public, and parking is free all day in downtown Cincinnati.  For more information, please contact Edith Thrower, at (513) 382-4306 or ediththrower@yahoo.com, or Pastor Lesley Jones, at (513) 628-7515 or sr.pastor@truth destinychurch.org.