Please enter your current email address to receive instructions
on resetting your password. Your password has been reset. Please
check your email for further instructions. You are sending a
link to the page. Please completely fill out the form Add an
additional message below. The URL for the page will
automatically be added to your message. President Abraham
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.
The document proclaimed "all persons held as slaves ... are, and
hencforward shall be free." In Virginia, the Emancipation
Proclamation was first read under an oak tree in Hampton. The
tree was a gathering place for freed African-Americans to quench
"a great thirst for knowledge," which was prohibited in Virginia
but made permissible because they were behind Union lines. It
was under this tree that the South first learned of President
Lincoln's declaration of freedom. Visit the Emancipation Oak at
Hampton University. National Geographic Society calls it one of
the 10 Great Trees of the World