CORRESPONDENT OF THE DAY

By Staff Reports

Published: January 2, 2009

African-Americans Celebrate Watch Night

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

This Watch Night tradition grew out of gatherings on Dec. 31, 1862, also called Freedom's Eve. African-Americans gathered awaiting the news of the Emancipation Proclamation (Jan. 1, 1863). I can just imagine the joy and jubilation our ancestors felt upon hearing that African-Americans were legally free. (President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves except those in states and/or parts of states not in rebellion against the Union.)

Watch Night is now celebrated throughout the African-American community. However, we must never forget the reasons and realities for its existence. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would say: "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

By understanding and fulfilling the true essence of Watch Night, African-Americans are able to better resolve the challenges and obstacles that lie before us as a people more than 146 years later. Notwithstanding out special uniqueness in American history, it is now time -- in the new year and the new millennium -- to transform ourselves and attain our greatest potential. It can be done.

We must love and respect ourselves, individually and collectively. We need to resolve those familial and societal ills that afflict our children and communities. This empowerment process recognizes that we are primarily responsible for what happens to us. If things are to change, it must be up to us to make it happen.

To rightly commemorate the significance of Watch Night, we must continue to march forward. We owe this much to our ancestors.

John Horton. Norfolk.