National Freedom Day is a United States observance on February 1 honoring the signing by President Abraham Lincoln of a joint House and Senate resolution that later was ratified as the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In the mid-20th century, Major Richard Robert Wright Sr., born into slavery and freed after the Civil War, believed that there should be a day when freedom for all Americans is celebrated.
Wright invited national and local leaders to meet in Philadelphia in order to make plans to designate February 1 as an annual memorial to the signing of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by President Abraham Lincoln on this date.
[1][2] One year after Wright's death in 1947, both houses of the U.S. Congress passed a bill to make February 1 National Freedom Day.
In Philadelphia, wreath laying at the Liberty Bell has been a tradition for many years to mark National Freedom Day.