Guinness World Records confirmed her as the worldâs oldest living person. According to the Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group, which keep a list of supercentenarians aged over 110, the only other living person born in the 1800s is Emma Morano, of Verbania, Italy, who is a few months younger.
She scoured the archives for any and all information about emancipation day and the parades.5 Starting in 1991, Hanes organized events that would commit the day to public memory.6 Eventually, Emancipation Day was made an official public holiday in the District of Columbia in 2005.
In June 1862, Lincoln signed a bill passed by Congress that abolished slavery in all territories owned by the federal government. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that all slaves in the United States were free persons and that they were to remain free persons.