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.
On this day in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signs the final Emancipation Proclamation, which ends slavery in the rebelling states. A preliminary proclamation was issued in September 1862, following the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam in Maryland. The act signaled an important shift in the Unionâs Civil War aims,expanding the goal of the war from reunification to include the eradication of slavery.