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.
The Emancipation Proclamation, issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, freed all slaves in areas still in rebellion against the federal government. Delivered soon after the Union victory at the battle of Antietam, it motivated the Northern war effort and gave the war a higher purpose.