It’s a kind of historical asterisk, a small part of one of history’s biggest documents. But it played a huge role in the lives of generations of St. Mary Parish residents. It’s a provision in President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. And it specifically exempted the African Americans of St. Mary, along with those in St. Martin and Assumption, from emancipation. But the document, which at 720 words is shorter than this story, may have been one of the most complex documents in our history. At its center is the question of what Lincoln hoped to accomplish with the proclamation, which ...