The official Emancipation Proclamation was set forth in the fall of 1862 and adopted in January 1863 by a wartime Union government. This proclamation, intiated some two years prior to the conclusion of the American Civil War, only allowed for the emancipation or freedom of Black-Americans in the rebel states of the Confederacy. The ratification of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the conclusion in
1866 and 1867 made law the freedom and enfranchisement of the Black-American. Upon the conclusion of the Civil War in April 1865, there were still a large portion of the Black-American population still kept in the bo***ge of slavery despite attempts by the Radical Republican government to free all those still held. It would take several years of political and military initiatives to truly bring forth the physical nature of freedom to those still held in the confines of slavery. During the years immediately following the end of the Civil War many Black-Americans relished in their new glory of freedom and sovereignty. This was a time of great rejoice and accomplishment, and these new freedoms were honored and celebrated by the growing Black-American community everywhere. It was on or around the day that each individual state gained emancipation from the federal government that was deemed the day of celebration upon the state’s Black-American community. August 4 is the day set aside for celebrating the emancipation of the American slave in Joplin, MO and other neighboring towns as Neosho and Springfield, MO. The celebration has taken place on or around the weekend of August 4 annually in Joplin, MO for more than 80 years dating back to the 1920's in Ewert Park.
