Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation freeing enslaved people in rebelling areas

President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. The order declares enslaved people in states and areas still in rebellion against the United States to be free.\n\nThe proclamation does not end slavery everywhere, but it changes the Civil War into an explicit fight over slavery and opens the door for Black men to join the Union Army and Navy.\n\nThe event is a turning point because the federal government uses war powers to attack slavery, the central institution of anti-Black racism in the United States.