Many churches across western Connecticut celebrated the freeing of enslaved people on Thursday.

Parishioners at Russell Temple Methodist Church in Bridgeport observed the 163rd anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. President Abraham Lincoln’s executive order went into effect on this day in 1863.

Church leaders say enslaved people gathered in Black churches to await their freedom on the last night of 1862.

Bishop Theodore T. Plummer said, "We have done so much as a race, as a people and we don't ever want to forget where we came from, and we want to always know where we came from, where we are and then where we're going. They say if you don't remember your past you're apt to make the same mistakes again."

Many churches held special services Wednesday night called Watch Night or Freedom’s Eve.