During a Juneteenth event, the National Archives announced it will permanently display the Emancipation Proclamation. News4’s Dominque Moody reports.
The National Archives has put a date to last year's announcement that the Emancipation Proclamation will go on permanent display.
Starting in 2026, the historic document will find a home next to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence in the Rotunda of the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C.
The new display will add the Proclamation to the list of "the nation's foundational documents," Archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan said in a press release about the display.
“The Emancipation Proclamation represents a pivotal moment in American history, fundamentally transforming freedom in our nation," and displaying the document will "increase access to the National Archives' holdings and tell a more comprehensive story," Shogan said in the release.
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The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, as the U.S. entered the third year of the Civil War. The famous speech freed all enslaved people in states that had seceded from the Union, and were not already under Northern control, as soon as the Union won the war.
During a Juneteenth celebration last year, the National Archives announced the permanent display for the Emancipation Proclamation was coming, but did not specify a date.
In 2023 and 2024, the Archives displayed the document for a few days around the Juneteenth holiday.
That temporary display also included General Order No. 3 -- the document that in 1865 informed enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, that they had been freed two years prior.
The upcoming permanent display was paid for by a gift from Boeing to the National Archives Foundation, which is the nonprofit arm of the National Archives.
“Having the Emancipation Proclamation on permanent display among America’s founding documents is an important step forward in telling a more complete story of America’s past,” Ted Colbert, President and CEO of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, said in the release. “With this investment, Boeing hopes to encourage visitors to be more civically engaged, and to have robust conversations about what it means to build a truly equitable and inclusive society.”
Colbert became CEO of Boeing in 2022, and the company has made efforts in recent years to hire more nonwhite factory workers and pilots, sometimes facing backlash.
With Boeing's donation, the Archives can now create "a custom case" that will "appropriately safeguard and display the Emancipation Proclamation," the release said.
"The case will meet stringent conservation and security requirements, and be designed to merge seamlessly into the historic architecture of the Rotunda," the release continued.
Also top-of-mind are efforts to preserve document by rotating through each of the five double-sided pages, limiting light exposure to any one page of the document.
The 2024 temporary display ends on Thursday, June 20.
