Several months ago, former Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board chair Arthur Griffin shared with me the fruits of his quest to trace his ancestry. The genealogist he hired all but gushed at the treat it was to delve into the background of his grandfather Laurens Griffin. It is unusual, he said, to have the opportunity to work on an African American research case in which there are only three generations back to the pre-emancipation days of slavery.

You read that right. Griffins grandfather - long dead by the time of Griffins birth was a slave.

Slavery is the past many Americans dont want to remember but its not so distant, and its getting some attention these days. Two movies with different perspectives are spotlighting it: Steven Spielbergs fact-based Lincoln focuses on President Lincolns determination to get the 13th amendment, outlawing slavery, passed. Quentin Tarantinos fictional DJango Unchained tells the tale of a freed slave turned bounty hunter.

The more seminal event though is the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. The commemoration this week kicks off a yearlong celebration the proclamations sesquicentennial - Lincoln signed it on Jan. 1, 1863. More important the commemoration spotlights the most critical freedom movement in this country since its founding. Thats something all Americans can take pride in, and is worth celebrating. Its a shame so many dont.

The National Archives, where the proclamation was on rare display this week, has dubbed it one of the great documents of human freedom. But though the document declared slaves thenceforward, and forever free, that decree only applied to enslaved persons in states that were in rebellion against the United States. That meant slaves in the Confederacy. For all practical purposes, the document didnt of itself free most slaves.

Yet, the significance of Abraham Lincolns bold move was and still is evident. Lincoln himself said it would be what history would remember him for. It is the central act of my administration and the great event of the nineteenth century, he said. And Lincoln, staunchly against slavery, told friends he would rather die than take back a word of it.

Still, debates over Lincolns true motives for issuing the proclamation and disputes over his complex some say evolving views about blacks (he once contended differences between blacks and whites in the United States were too stark and advocated relocating freed slaves to other countries) plus the discomfort many Americans even now feel when talking about slavery and the war that ended it in this country have nearly relegated the proclamation to an historical dust-bin.

With yearlong sesquicentennial events this year, that may change.

It should. The proclamation helped the country confront the inconsistencies in U.S. slavery and the tenets in Americas founding document, the Declaration of Independence. Lincoln in a debate with Stephen Douglas in 1858 said that though the founders could not have reached agreement on the Constitution without permitting slavery to remain, that did not change the standard of liberty raised in the Declaration : So I say in relation to the principle that all men are created equal, let it be as nearly reached as we can.

The reach of the proclamation was profound even if it was not the widespread liberation many wished for.

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America’s worthy freedom journey