OPINION
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COLUMNS
Emancipation Day should be reminder to keep fighting slavery
May 21, 2012On May 20, 1865, U.S. General Edward M. McCook gave the first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation in the state of Florida. During the Civil War, more than 1,000 African-American Floridians joined nearly a quarter of a million African-Americans across the nation to serve in the Union Army and Navy. Many more worked as scouts, spies and laborers in a struggle to end the long nightmare of slavery. Henceforth, African-American Floridians observed May 20 as a sacred day of remembrance of the Peculiar Institution’s many victims, and in hope that the nation would nevermore place property rights above human rights.
