DC was only part of the U.S. to pay off slave owners for freeing enslaves persons they held.

Before issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln signs into law the Compensated Emancipation Act. Costing nearly one million dollars, the act buys freedom for all District of Columbia slaves.

D.C. Emancipation Day celebrations continue, with a parade, festival, and concert commemorating the end of slavery in the ...

D.C. after President Lincoln signed the DC Compensated Emancipation Act in 1862. District residents marked the first anniversary after the Civil War with a parade. For the last 159 years ...

The island’s very first Emancipation Day celebration, marking the British Empire’s Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, was held in ...