As the rest of the country prepares for the Fourth of July festivities, one of our territories celebrates a different, yet significant, type of freedom. Today is the 175th Anniversary of Emancipation Day in the U.S. Virgin Islands. On this day in 1848, the enslaved people convened on St. Croix to demand their freedom from the Danish who owned the islands, and the uprising earned them their emancipation. To put this in perspective, the people there had gained their freedom 15 years before President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and 17 years before the enslaved people in Texas were made aware, which we now know as Juneteenth. #Emancipation #EmancipationDay #Freedom #Anniversary #VirginIslands #Caribbean 📸: NationalParkService from the VirginIslandsnps Image: An old stone building stands abandoned on the beach.