It’s Emancipation Day here in DC, marking the 148th anniversary of the end of slavery in the District of Columbia. According to the National Archives, “the act brought to a conclusion decades of agitation aimed at ending what antislavery advocates called ‘the national shame’ of slavery in the nation’s capital.”

The holiday often passes unnoticed, even by those living in DC — but the DC Emancipation Act was actually an important precursor to the Emancipation Proclamation. The language of historic legislation is hard to get through, so to save myself the trouble, I used Wordle to make a quick word cloud of the Act’s major sections – click to see in full view: