Watch Night and Freedom's Eve

It's New Year's Eve. Around the world people will celebrate the end of the current year and welcome the next. In the United States there will be parties and fireworks. People will be in clubs and bars dancing to DJ's and live music and getting drunk on champagne and other libations. Not all of us will be partying. Some will stay at home and spend a quiet evening with loved ones. Some will be spending their time honoring a holiday that most people are completely unaware of. These people will be quietly spending their time in church in honor of Watch Night and Freedom's Eve.

Just about all Americans celebrate the 4th of July as a day of independence and freedom. When one knows the facts about American history one knows that it is a holiday that rings hollow for black people. On July 5th, 1776, black people in the newly declared, free United States of America, were still in bondage as slaves, as chattel, without rights or representation. At the advent of the American Revolution black slaves wanted to fight for the cause of freedom. They assumed that the new paradigm of freedom and independence would apply to them also.

As we know well today, that was not the case. George Washington, the leader of the revolutionary forces, forbade slaves in Virginia from participating in the war as did every other state in the South except Maryland. It is not surprising given the large number of slaves he inherited by marriage was the primary source of his high standing. He and other revolutionaries like Thomas Jefferson built their wealth and reputation on the ownership of slaves. It wasn't something that just happened naturally, it was a conscious decision. It was debated among the revolutionary leadership and it was decided that slave labor would be vital to a fledgling nation trying to compete with established empires like England, Spain, and France, on the international agricultural markets. Even so, free black men from the Northern states enlisted in the army to fight for the cause of the revolution. Initially there was resistance from Congress but that resistance softened when there was a need to replenish the number of troops once the war began.

It was actually England that offered black slaves the opportunity to be free during the American Revolution. Freedom was offered to any slave who would escape their bondage and fight for the British against the American revolutionaries. It was not a sincere offer. After the British army was defeated at the deciding battle in Yorktown in 1781 the British forces brought all of their tens of thousands of escaped black slaves to the island of Manhattan to be reclaimed by their owners. The war so severely depleted the number of slaves in the Southern states that importation of slaves from Africa, that had been banned before the war, was began again in earnest.

It would be 86 years before black people gained their freedom. As they did in the American Revolutionary War, black people were eager to join the fight in the Civil War. President Lincoln, as Washington was before him, was reluctant to allow black men to fight in the war. After all, the war was not about slavery, it was about preserving the Union. It was the North that declared war on the South when the Southern states formed an independent government and elected Jefferson Davis as their president. As it was in the American Revolutionary War, black men were allowed to fight when the Northern forces became depleted and were at risk of losing the war. On September 22, 1862 Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, effectively freeing all slaves in the southern states except the state of Texas. Though signed in September 1862, the executive order would not become law until January 1, 1863. On the December 31, 1862, black southerners congregated in churches and other black meeting places to await the midnight hour when they would become free people in the democratic republic of the United States. This night would come to be known as Freedom's Eve.

It was not new for black people to gather on the eve of December 31st. This night was already known as Watch Night. During this period of the United States, January 1st was the day when all debts from the previous year had to be settled. The selling off of slaves was often used as a way to pay off debt. The selling of slaves often involved the breaking up of slave families so the slaves gathered together to celebrate and watch over each other, because for many it would be the last night spent with family and loved ones. Watch Night was originally a ritual of the Methodists which held a Watch Night each month when there was a full moon. The significance of Watch Night was a vigil to God, to be prepared to "meet your maker". As stated in 13th chapter of Mark, Watch ye therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh. Black slaves adopted this, as they did with many Christian rituals, to their particular ways of worship.

When you get right down to the hard, cold facts, for African Americans it is not July 4th, 1776, we should celebrate for freedom. It is January 1, 1863, that it is the true day of our freedom. I know it is for me. My father is from New Orleans, Louisiana and my mother is from Birmingham, Alabama. I am a direct descendant of people who were slaves and practiced Watch Night and waited with the great anxiety on the night of December 31, 1862. From here on, every year on this night, I will celebrate the coming of the New Year, Watch Night, and Freedom's Eve.