Now picture this. It's the summer of 1864 and 1,500 black people from all around Washington, D.C.

are gathered on the White House lawn for a party. a Fourth of July Strawberry Festival to raise funds for the city's black religious schools.

There had never been an event like this where black people, with the blessing of the president himself, stood on the grounds of the so-called People's House,

not as servants or as builders, but as guests.

But on this day, led by a contingent of black church

and community leaders, Black Washington showed up and showed out,

wearing their Sunday bests, accompanied by horses,

draped in ornately festooned saddles. In the background of this

strawberry festival, the Civil War was raging into its fourth bloody year, and yet here this

contingent of black Washingtonian stood in their resplendent blackness with their finery and

fancy horses, with the sweetness of those

strawberries on their lips, and the sweetness of freedom in their souls. Just two years

earlier, in 1862, President Lincoln had signed the law freeing all enslaved people in the

nation's capital. The Emancipation Proclamation Act would come eight and a half months later in January 1863.

But with the country still in the thick of war, freedom for black men and women down south was more of a loosely penciled promise than a guarantee. But in Washington, freedom was tangible.

Black people owned businesses, they owned property,

and even hosted fancy fundraisers

to help give their children the schooling they deserved.

But it wasn't all kumbaya. That strawberry festival was scandalous and sent

shockwaves through the media, Washington's elite political circles, and their working class

counterparts. News reports from the day described white Washingtonians as much exercised.

The Albany Argus newspaper decried that up until that day,

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