Emancipation Oak

Newly freed slaves took classes and listened to the first Southern reading of the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863 under this oak tree. During the Civil war, enslaved people fled their plantation seeking freedom behind Union lines in Virginia. When Gen. ...

Emancipation Oak

“Thirst for Knowledge”

Here, under an oak tree, newly freed African American students listened in January 1863 as the Emancipation Proclamation was read aloud. Union Gen. Benjamin F. Butler’s “contraband of war” decision at Fort Monroe in 1861 anticipated that day, ...