December 31, 2022, marks 160 years since the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by then President Lincoln December 31, 1862.

And The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.
The amendment was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House of Representatives on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the required 27 of the then 36 states on December 6, 1865, and proclaimed on December 18.
It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American Civil War.
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WORDS ON IMAGE:
What The Proclamation Actually Did

Reginald Washington, African-American records specialist at the National Archives, says the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t immediately free any slave.

Washington says the proclamation applied only to areas where the federal government had no control or ability to enforce its provisions. The document that actually freed the slaves was the 13th Amendment.

The proclamation, however, changed the character of the conflict from a war to preserve the union to a war for human liberation. Washington says when President Lincoln started to sign it, he hesitated.

"His hand started shaking," Washington says. "He didn’t want to sign it so someone would think he had second thoughts about it."

The president collected himself and then signed the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863 — and freedom was declared.
- Narrative source: December 23, 2012 NPR Weekend Edition.
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The first Watch Night was Dec. 31, 1862, as abolitionists and others waited for word — via telegraph, newspaper or word of mouth — that the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued.

"A lot of it, at least the initial Watch Night, was really many of the free Black community," says Lonnie Bunch, director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Yet for a people largely held in bondage, freedom is a powerful idea — and that's what the Watch Night tradition embodies.

TRADITION ENDURES
Bunch smiles when people talk about how they're going to stay up for the New Year "because they are celebrating the freedom of African Americans," he says.

In Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Baptist Church has held its own Watch Night services for 35 years. The Rev. H. Beecher Hicks Jr. says this year's service will begin with praise, testimony and music.

"You might hear an anthem, you might hear a spiritual [or] you might hear a gospel," Hicks says.

At midnight, the congregation will pray the old year out and the new year in. As Watch Night is deeply rooted in the history of Blacks in America, Hicks says, it's especially relevant at a time when the community is still struggling.

Somewhere in the service — he says he hasn't made up his mind just when yet — there will be a sermon "designed to address the progressive and regressive moves we have been through as a people."

WHAT THE PROCLAMATION ACTUALLY DID
Reginald Washington, African American records specialist at the National Archives, says the Emancipation Proclamation didn't immediately free any slave.

Washington says the proclamation applied only to areas where the federal government had no control or ability to enforce its provisions. The document that actually freed the slaves was the 13th Amendment.

The proclamation, however, changed the character of the conflict from a war to preserve the union to a war for human liberation. Washington says when President Lincoln started to sign it, he hesitated.

"His hand started shaking," Washington says. "He didn't want to sign it so someone would think he had second thoughts about it."

The president collected himself and then signed the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863 — and freedom was declared.

The document was reproduced widely. "Several publishers published small versions ... pocket versions of the Emancipation Proclamation to be given to soldiers and officers," Bunch says. He says the tiny documents were read to slaves.

"There are wonderful reminiscences by the enslaved of saying, 'I was on Master Johnson's plantation and a soldier came and he took out a little piece of paper and suddenly said we --were free,' " he says.
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WATCH NIGHT ON THE PLANTATIONS

Before December 31, 1862, New Year's Eve was called "Watch Night", and New Year's Day was referred to as “Heartbreak Day,” according to Valdosta State University history professor Dr. David Williams in his book, “A People’s History of the Civil War.”. because New Year’s Day was often the day when slaveholders sold slaves and or "rented" them out.

It was when enslaved families, parents and children, siblings, husbands and wives, were separated. The enslaved people who did not have to work making sure the White slavers enjoyed their New Year's celebrations parties, would gather on New Year’s Eve knowing that may be the last time many families had the opportunity to be together. For the enslaved Black people, it was not a joyous time to celebrate the new year's arrival as was the case for White people in America.

We know from a recorded account from the section entitled, THE SLAVES' NEW YEAR'S DAY., from the book, "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
Written by Herself: Harriet A. (Ann) Jacobs, 1813-1897". that on the plantation she was enslaved on in Edenton, NC that the enslaved people gathered on December 31, with anxious feelings of the New Year's Day coming, because that was the day that many of the enslaved Black people would be sold and or rented out.
It was the day in which families were torn apart in order for the slave master to increase his profit and or pay off his debts.

Watch Night took on a different meaning beginning with Dec. 31, 1862, as the Free Black people, the abolitionists, and those enslaved Black people on plantations who knew, gathered to await word from Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which would free the enslaved Black people, and was to go into effect Jan. 1, 1863.

For those that had gotten word about President Lincoln and the Emaciation Proclamation, the day before the proclamation was signed was called by many 'Freedom's Eve.'

In many cases, the few Black churches that existed and their congregations were joined by White abolitionists throughout both the North and South as they awaited well into New Year’s Day in 1863 for word that Lincoln had signed the Proclamation into law. Joy and celebration greeted Lincoln’s words in many Black churches and on plantations that did receive word.

“I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States,” the Proclamation read, “and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be, free.”

In the decades since the end of chattel slavery by President Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation on December 31, 1862, Watch Night has evolved into an evening that honors the lives of the enslaved Black people, celebrates family and fellowship, and encourages a time to reflect on one's past year with prayers, praise and hope for a good and better year coming. .

One recorded "waiting" on December 31, 1862, by the enslaved Black people is this one:
Boston Abolitionists Await Emancipation Proclamation

"On this day, New Year's Eve 1862, William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of the abolitionist paper The Liberator, delayed printing the latest edition as he waited for news from Washington. At midnight, his son and daughter joined Black worshipers in hopeful prayer at the AME Church on Beacon Hill. The next day, thousands of abolitionists gathered at the Music Hall and the Tremont Temple in Boston, hoping they would have cause to celebrate. At dusk, the wire finally came from Washington: President Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation."

Read The Rest of this article Here: https://www.massmoments.org/.../boston-abolitionists...

Source: https://www.npr.org/.../watch-nights-honor-emancipation...