We must never forget the reason for Texas Emancipation Day because not all people were free until June nineteenth, 1865. Before the Emancipation proclamation, the infamous Fugitive Slave Act effectively said that if a slave escapes to a free state and then the slave must return to the property of the slaveholder. This means that no slave was technically freed even if they escaped to freedom. The late abolitionist John Brown once said, “I have only a short time to live, only one death to die, and I will die fighting for this cause. There will be no peace in this land until slavery is done for.” Brown’s words were true in every sense of the word.