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Date: | Tue, 6 May 2008 08:33:35 -0500 |
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Ray Bonis asks a good question. In Loudoun County, Emancipation Day
celebrations were a major event, and an organizing event, for the
county's black citizens for over half a century, during the darkest days
of racial segregation. The Emancipation Society was formed in 1890 (a
portrait of its founder, William H. Clark, hangs in a room named for him
in the Thomas Balch Library in Leesburg). It held yearly celebrations of
emancipation, featuring black soldiers from the 9th and 10th cavalry
(the Buffalo soldiers). In addition, it was a joint-stock mutual aid
society and acquired its own festival grounds and facility in
Purcellville, Virginia. Quite a contrast to the "Lost Cause"
celebrations that so moved white Virginians in that era. The society
lasted until 1971.
An excellent history of the Society by Elaine Thompson can be obtained
from the Friends of the Thomas Balch Library.
Jim Hershman
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