Imagine living with the knowledge that your freedom had already been scheduled.

On March 31, 1817, New York lawmakers passed legislation declaring that every person still legally enslaved in the state would become free on July 4, 1827.

For the next decade, thousands of Black New Yorkers woke each morning knowing the date their legal enslavement would end, but not yet living in that freedom. They continued to labor for others, raise children, worship, build families and communities, and imagine lives beyond bondage while waiting for a promise the state had already made. Freedom had been declared. It had not yet arrived.

To understand why July 4, 1827 mattered so deeply, we must first remember what July 4, 1776 did not mean. While the Declaration of Independence proclaimed liberty, slavery remained legal in New York. For thousands of enslaved Black New Yorkers, Independence Day celebrated freedoms they themselves had not yet received.

Fifty-one years later, July 4 took on a second........

© NY Daily News