In the Columbus area, the “Eight O’May” has long been called “Emancipation Day.” It is the day tradition says the enslaved African Americans in the Columbus area learned they were free. It is also one of the oldest continuously celebrated events in Columbus.
Beginning in 1866, and especially in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the African American community in Columbus held a large celebration on May 8 with parades, speeches and various forms of entertainment. The day was a recognized holiday for the Black community ranging from industrial workers to farm laborers to cooks. Because all the cooks and maids who worked for ladies of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church had the day off, the church started its Eight of May luncheon, which included both lunch and dinner at a cost of only 50 cents in 1908.
There were parades, speeches, picnics, singing, ballgames and religious ceremonies at churches, schools and city parks. Parades, often led by the Union Band, would assemble at Union Academy or a church and march to the place of celebration. When the celebration was at the pavilion at Lake Park (now the northern part of Propst Park) the city’s trolley line would provide transportation. A typical example was the Eight of May celebration described in the Columbus Commercial on May 9, 1918:
“Representatives of the different colored churches, schools and benevolent societies assembled at Lake Park yesterday afternoon, when the following program was given: Song ‘Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow’; Prayer, Rev I. M. Mission; Song ‘My Country Tis of Thee,’ Introductory remarks, Emancipation Address by Rev. E. L. Hollis; Short address, Mrs. L. A. Williams, Rev. E. R. Miller and Prof. T. P. Harris; Closing Prayer, Rev. E. J. Echols.”
The 1918 celebration also included a parade, a ball game and other outdoor amusements at Lake Park. The park is now a part of Propst Park and in 1918 the Columbus Trolley line provided transportation to the park from downtown and from Military Road. The trolleys ran down the middle of Main Street, and the median there is a remnant of the trolley line.
There has been some confusion as to why May 8 was considered Emancipation Day in Columbus. The date did not correspond with Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation or with the accepted date of the Confederate surrender of the Military Departments Mississippi and Alabama by Confederate General Taylor to Union General Canby near Citronelle, Alabama, on May 4, 1865. It also is much earlier than the date of “Juneteenth,” which is celebrated nationally.
I had often heard that May 8 was the date when the news of the Confederate surrender on May 4 actually reached Columbus. Also adding to the confusion was the fact that the Union cavalry under General Benjamin Grierson was not sent orders to occupy Columbus until May 10, 1865.
An article by E.T. Sykes, former Adjutant-General of Walthall’s Brigade in the Confederate Army in the October 29, 1921, edition of The Columbus Dispatch recalled the surrender of Confederate forces in west Alabama and east Mississippi.
According to Sykes, the document signed by Generals Canby and Taylor on May 4, 1865, had not been the formal surrender document but only an armistice or temporary cessation of hostilities. The actual surrender document was not signed by both generals until May 8. Sykes concluded his article: “The undersigned writer personally knows that the date of surrender of this (Alabama and Mississippi) Department, and consequent freedom of the Negro in Mississippi, was first officially recognized on May 8th, 1865. E.T. Sykes.”
Exactly when Union Troops first entered Columbus is answered in Cyrus Green’s diary entry for May 8, 1866, in Columbus. “Raining in the morning but soon quit, yet rained again at night. Today was a day long to be remembered by many of the African race here. It was their first celebration in commemoration of their freedom – one year ago this morning the Federal troops arrived in this place and proclaimed the slaves free.” Those troops were probably Federal cavalry from Gen. Benjamin Grierson’s command. Grierson was the first federal military commander of Columbus and is best known for his daring raid through Mississippi in 1863. That raid was the basis of the John Wayne movie “The Horse Soldiers.”
That first anniversary was celebrated in the Black community with speeches during the day including one in honor of the day by Robert Gleed. That night was a grand celebration also recorded in Green’s diary.
“But the grand display and crowing success of the day was the May party at night and the supper. I will only say here that it was a splendid success when we view it and its bearing on all points. Little I presume would our friends at home dream that this people could bring together a company of their own so well and tastefully dressed, so well behaved and will all so intelligent and Christian like and the one that gathered last evening to witness the coronation of their own May Queen and listen to the speeches and replies of the occasion. The supper table was covered not only with the whitest linens, but an enigmatic profusion of cakes, meats, candies and blended tastefully with flowers, leaves and every conceivable beauty culled from nature’s great laboratory. To crown all everything passed off smoothly and although there was rain falling profusely outside and the performers were often cheered by loud claps of thunder as though the heavens, too, were in ecstasy. There was a rain of joy in each heart which beamed out through every face as pleasantly as the smile of a bride.”
Thursday’s celebration of the Eighth of May also brought plenty of smiles to the faces of the many who attended the day’s events in Columbus. There was the unveiling of the Mississippi Freedom Trail marker honoring Dr. Emmett J. Stringer in Catfish Alley and the Mississippi School of Mathematics and Science’s annual Eighth of May Emancipation Celebration in Sandfield Cemetery in which students from MUW and Columbus public schools also participated. It was a wonderful celebration of the 160th anniversary of freedom arriving in Columbus.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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