Tallahassee's observance of Emancipation Month began on Saturday, May 11 near the Florida A&M campus.
The yearly festival includes a parade and a "Walk Through Living History." The event at Speed Spencer Stephens Park included a replica encampment of the Civil War's famed Second Infantry U.S. Colored Troops. There was also a speech by Frederick Douglass re-enactor John Anderson, Jr. who insisted today's generation has a solemn responsibility.
"We dare not disappoint our ancestors by falling short of their dreams," he intoned without breaking character following his formal presentation.
One member of the new generation supporting the ancestral dream is five year old Lorielle Green. She's a student at Brownsville Prep Institute who has a great love of science.
"Everything is made of matter," she exclaimed with obvious enthusiasm. "Matter is made of elements and elements are made of atoms!"
Emancipation Month concludes with the May 20th reading of the Emancipation Proclamation from the steps of Tallahassee's Knott House Museum.
