Emancipation Day is celebrated in Washington DC with a parade, commemorative ceremonies and topped off with a fireworks display. The April 16th holiday is a day of remembrance, centered on the first federal act to free the enslaved in the District of Columbia.
The Federal City was surrounded by slave states in 1862. At the time President Lincoln desperately walked the fence on the slavery issue, not wanting to interfere with his goal of saving the Union. In early 1862, Senator Charles Sumner posed the question to Lincoln, "Do you know who is the largest slave holder in the United States?" Lincoln understood his poignant question and soon signed into federal law the District of Columbia Emancipation Act. The Emancipation Proclamation followed in January, 1863.
This monument pays tribute to Lincoln, fully funded by emancipated citizens of the Western Sanitary Commission of Saint Louis, Missouri. The first five dollars was contributed by Charlotte Scott, a freed woman of Virginia. The monument was built by her suggestion on the day she heard of Lincoln's death.