Survivors!~ Four Formerly enslaved centenarian Women 100+ years old ~In 1916 gathered at an Emancipation Day Celebration in Washington, DC.
The Gist of Freedom guest Preston Washington welcomes Historian Dr. Bradley Skelcher for a lively discussion about The 150th Anniversary of The Emancipation Proclamation, African American’s New Year’s “Watch Night” Celebration!
John Henrik Clark~ “History Is A Compass That People Use To Find Themselves On The Human (Spiritual) geography.”
Black Methodists and Baptists celebrate Watch Night, December 31, 1862: the Emancipation Proclamation would go into effect at midnight. The basis for the celebration in African American churches today.
The Emancipation Proclamation applied only to enslaved Africans of the Confederate States. The prayer meeting congregation depicted in Carlton’s painting consists of former enslaved Africans that migrated to Union territory during the Civil War.
Carlton’s painting is variously called “Watch Night — Waiting for the Hour” or ” Watch Meeting–Dec. 31st, 1862.” It was sent to President Lincoln by abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison
The painting in 1864 circulated widely as an engraving (below).
It now hangs in what is called the Lincoln Bedroom, really that president’s study and Cabinet Room, over the desk upon which he signed the Emancipation Proclamation on the afternoon of New Year’s.
~~~~Waiting for the Hour–the abbreviated title of this painting–depicts a congregation of enslaved Africans on the eve of January 1, 1863, moments before the Emancipation Proclamation would take effect. . . . Set within a barnlike space is a crowd of figures, illuminated by a flaring torch. Through a doorway at the left, one glimpses others; above them glows a cross with a star in its center in the night sky. In the doorway stands a man with the Union flag draped over his arms. At his feet a woman prostrates herself in awe and supplication. From this point a rising diagonal orders the throng. A handsomely dressed white woman, with tears in her eyes, gazes at the black woman beside her. The only white person present, she is picked out by the light, suggesting that she may be the slaves’mistress, joining them for the moment of deliverance. . . . “At the center a half dozen figures cluster around a crate turned on end. Partly visible lettering reveals that it contained supplies of the Sanitary Commission, the precursor of the Red Cross. Now it has become a kind of altar . . . . An old man in white shirt and red vest holds a large pocket watched with a fob in the shape of an anchor, a Christian symbol of hope. Most eyes are turned toward the watch, whose hands proclaim five minutes before midnight–before emancipation. The watch is the compositional center of the picture, spotlit and framed in the dark hand. The left hand lightly touches a book, presumably the Bible. The diagonal rise culminates in the torchbearer, whose nude torso and togalike drapery recall classical allegorical figures, and whose brand illuminates not only the scene below but also the Emancipation Proclamation itself nailed to the wall. . . . . [T]he inscription that gives the painting its title [is] on links of chain across the bottom.
Learn more about this historical and fascinating Emancipation Celebration photo with John Franklin, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) specialist on Emancipation Day.
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