Two weeks ago, I finally visited a place I have driven past probably a couple of hundred times: the Emancipation Oak located on the campus of Hampton University. National Geographic calls it “one of the 10 great trees of the world.” It is a beautiful sight to see early in the morning as the light begins to hit its crown and its massive branches. It is a sacred place in our country’s history.
It is the site where the Emancipation Proclamation was read for the first time in the South. As word began to spread, it quickly became a refuge for African Americans and an important location for a key ingredient needed for our democracy to thrive: free public education.
When I first arrived at the tree and realized it was the one I had read about for years, I was a little upset. It is so close to Interstate 64 that you can hear and see the 100s of cars and traffic through its leaves. I wanted it to be shown more respect like the mighty Redwoods in California. I wanted it to be a place of meditation, separated from the hustle and bustle of the world. A place for quiet contemplation. I didn’t want it on the periphery of the campus, I wanted it to be growing right in the center in its rightful place.
But upon further reflection, I realized the mighty Emancipation Oak is exactly where it’s supposed to be. Growing beautifully still after all these years, right next to the masses of people driving past it each day. It is a tree of the people. A miracle that has stood the test of time and survived so many dramatic economic and industrial changes in our world. I’m sure over the years it has had many threats to its existence, natural and unnatural alike, yet it continues to grow. It is such a powerful example to us all.
The tree represents so many things to so many people: shelter, safety, hope, determination, hard work, celebrations, beginnings, and endings. For me, as I stood next to its powerful trunk and extended branches, I kept imagining the teachers like Mary Peake who came there to teach people of all ages to read and write, waking up each morning ready to equip all who showed up at the tree with the necessary skills to survive in a very unsteady world. I know there must have been many, many days where she felt overwhelmed by the monumental task set before her but she didn’t waiver. She understood what was at stake, what had been sacrificed for so many generations to even allow for the circumstances she was seeing to occur. She knew she was as Langston Hughes once wrote “The seed of the coming free.”
What is also pretty incredible about the Emancipation Oak is its proximity to Fort Monroe. If you could climb to the top of the tree you could probably see America’s largest walled fort in the distance, it’s that close. Spending an afternoon there is also quite an educational and enlightening experience. The fort has seen its share of history. Abraham Lincoln, Chief Blackhawk, and Edgar Allen Poe to name a few all spent time within its walls. Today, you can also see dozens of cargo ships passing next to it throughout the day. An indication of how fast and how big America has grown since its early days.
Exploring the fort, you can learn about perhaps its most incredible “visitor” especially with its juxtaposition to the Emancipation Oak. Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States of America, was held at Fort Monroe after being captured by Union troops in the days just after the Civil War ended.
You can easily walk in and out of Davis’ prison cell where he was held for almost two years. His story is really almost inconceivable. To think of him in chains in that cell while the recently freed slaves under the Emancipation Oak just down the road were trying to figure out what it really meant to finally be free is breathtaking. His future, their future, and our country’s future in those years was up for grabs with outcomes yet to be determined. The terrible battlefield bloodshed had stopped but other battles were just starting. More blood and sweat and tears would be shed in the years immediately after the Civil War to make what had been sacrificed in those awful years worth it. Those battles are still ongoing.
Looking back now, after visiting both sites and learning about their deep, important, and interesting histories, it is hard to imagine in those months and years immediately after the war, the confusion and feelings of injustice people must have been experiencing.
After four years of living hell, the war was over. Jubilation and happiness finally arrived for so many while sadness and dread showed up for others. Imagine just days after celebrating the war’s end, you find out President Lincoln, who had worked so hard to save the country, has been assassinated.
Turmoil, shock, and utter devastation sets in again and rumors of the war not really being over are heard across the country. At the same time, roads throughout the South are seeing African Americans trying to find missing family members, looking for wives and husbands, brothers, sisters and children who had been sold away years before. Tirelessly walking and searching and wondering where their next meal would come from, hundreds perhaps thousands, would pass by the Emancipation Oak and find hope.
And while all this is happening, Jefferson Davis, alive and imprisoned just a few miles away at Fort Monroe, is sitting in his cell wondering if he will be sentenced to death.
In a crazy twist of fate, Lincoln the preserver of the Union would live for only 5 days after the war, while Davis, who was eventually set free in 1867, would live for more than 20 years. Years of instability, tumultuous changes, and inconsistencies for so many in our society, but years when he was still breathing while Lincoln’s lifeless body lay buried in Illinois.
If you ever get the chance, take the exit off the Interstate and spend a day or two in Hampton visiting these two sites. Their lessons and stories will captivate and inspire you.