Freedom's Eve

On this day, New Year's Eve, in 1862, millions of African-American slaves in the United States held their breath. The next day, the first day of 1863, would be so much more than a new year for them. They'd had new years before, but all of those just turned out to be the old year all over again. 1863 would be different. When President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, it did not immediately go into effect. It would not do so until January 1st, New Year's Day, of 1863. And so, on New Year's Eve, millions of slaves held their breath. The piece of paper is not what would free them. What would free them is the commitment by the United States that the piece of paper represented. Now, some 145 years after what came to be known as "Freedom's Eve," civil rights remains a huge issue. These are wounds that do not heal quickly. But this is not why I write this.

Of all the railroads on display at your Virginia Museum of Transportation, one very important one remains absent -- the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was at its peak in the decades leading up to the Emancipation Proclamation and Freedom's Eve, and it was a model of cellular organization. Station Masters, the benevolent men and women who would hide escaped slaves in their homes, knew very little of the full route of the railroad. Instead, they would know of nearby "stations" and "conductors" to help guide the "passengers" to freedom. And while some may have actually traveled on an actual railroad, most went by foot in the dead of night -- a railroad of walkers.

There are plenty of books and resources on the Underground Railroad that can go into far greater detail with much greater reliability than this blog can or will attempt to do. For now, we spend this anniversary of Freedom's Eve in quiet and meditative remembrance of 2007, and with fierce and unyielding optimism, we look forward to 2008.

Happy New Year to you all.