WASHINGTON — Thousands are expected to gather in the nation’s capital Sunday for D.C. Emancipation Day, as the annual parade and festival move to a larger location to accommodate growing crowds.
This year’s celebration has been relocated to Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest between 9th and 13th streets, where crews spent the morning setting up stages and barricades in preparation for a full day of events.
D.C. Emancipation Day commemorates April 16, 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, freeing more than 3,100 enslaved people in Washington. The measure came nearly nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation, making the District the first place in the United States where emancipation became law…