Description:In this segment, Les talks with historian Rick Britton about Last Week in U.S. History: Last week, in 1863, on January 1st, President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order, went into effect. It changed the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in areas still controlled by the Confederacy. Lincoln believed that he had no authority as President to end slavery, which was a state matter. As Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, however, he could take military measures. His order carefully limited the Proclamation to those areas in insurrection. As a war measure, it hurt the South economically by removing its labor force, and helped the Union militarily by making Union soldiers out of freed slaves. The Proclamation also ended any chances of the Confederate government gaining recognition from England or France, which were anti-slavery. It marked a major shift in the stated goals of the war, admitting what the South had claimed all along: the Union was fighting the war to end slavery. Perhaps as many as 75,000 slaves were immediately emancipated in those regions of the Confederacy where the US Army was already in control. By the end of the war, about 200,000 African Americans, many of them former slaves, served in the Union Army and Navy. Congress passed the 13th Amendment by the necessary two-thirds vote on January 31, 1865, and it was ratified by the states on December 6, 1865, thus legally ending slavery in the United States. The Local Connection: A perfect example of the enslaved rushing to freedom took place here in Albemarle County following the skirmish at Rio Hill. Rick Britton has an OLLI at UVA class starting on Thursday, January 30th. It’s a 3-session class about three of this area’s most famous women: Anastasia, Dolley Madison, and Sally Hemings. It’s at Michie Tavern, so each session features a lecture and that fabulous fried chicken. Registration starts January 14. Go to www.olliuva.org, or call (434) 923-3600.