Proclamation presented by Mayor Ken Marshburn on June 7, 2021.

WHEREAS, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, declaring enslaved people in Confederate-controlled territory free and paving the way for passage of the 13th Amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States; and

WHEREAS, enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation was delayed by up to almost two and a half years in some Confederate territory, and by more than two years in the area that would become Garner; and