Montage of African Americans and Abraham Lincoln illustrating significance of the Emancipation Proclamation . ( Image courtesy of Library of Congress Public Domain ) Welcome to the first of this special 3-part article series presented in honor of the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation : The fact that an African American sits in the White House at the helm of government in the United States of America on this 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation represents both phenomenal political symbolism and a victory of faith in democracy that should not be lost on any American. Thoughts of the Emancipation Proclamation or the text of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S.  Constitution generally evoke images of American Blacks departing fields and kitchens to lend their own interpretation to the country’s great experiment in western democracy. But the end of legalized slavery did more than provide liberation for the bodies of