Emancipation

The Emancipation Proclamation is making a stop in Dearborn today. The document will be read and many other activities over a 24 hour period will celebrate the end of slavery. It is always good to see history remembered.

That the Proclamation did not free all slaves immediately is not necessarily the point. While that fact may serve as a sad reminder that we as a nation were not then perfect, the issuance of the document made the war in fact what it had been in effect anyway: about freedom for all.

It is worth remembering that history is a process, and that so long as we are going forward with genuinely good progress we are making headway. Our ancestors weren't perfect, but they did what they could. We are better off today for those efforts.