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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