"Freedom Rising: The Emancipation Proclamation, the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, & Boston's Black Community" (Old South Meeting House)

On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all persons enslaved in territories not then under Union control. Several months later, the 54th Massachusetts, the first northern black regiment in the Union Army, was sent to South Carolina to take part in operations against Confederate forces.

Beverly Morgan-Welch, Executive Director of the Museum of African American History, Boston and Nantucket, will discuss the profound effect that Boston's Black Community had on these events, as well as the museum's year-long sesquicentennial commemoration of this important history.