By Dr Keith Rowley
Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago
August 01, 2021 – Facebook
Happy Emancipation Day to all the people of Trinidad and Tobago, from the Government, my own family and myself on the occasion of Emancipation Day 2021.
Today, we recognise not just the horrific experience of our African ancestors – but the impact it continues to have on the lives of millions of their descendants.
Continue reading Dr Keith Rowley’s Emancipation Day Statement
By Clint Chan Tack
August 01, 2021 – newsday.co.tt
MOVEMENT for Social Justice (MSJ) political leader David Abdulah said slavery continues today in different forms.
He made the statement in his Emancipation Day message to the nation.
He said the MSJ “deplores the fact that our education system is so deficient in the teaching of our real history – the history of the struggle “out of slavery, through indenture and up to freedom.”
Continue reading MSJ’s David Abdulah: Slavery continues today
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 01, 2021
PART 1
The masters were “dam tief”, the Governor an “old rogue”, and the King not such a fool as to buy them half free when he was rich enough to pay for them altogether.
—Port of Spain Gazette, August 5, 1834
Today is Emancipation Day. Ashton Ford, one of our respected elders, remembers the impetus that led former prime minister George Chambers to change the Discovery Day holiday (a day that recognised the misdeeds of our oppressors) to Emancipation Day that honours the achievements of our ancestors.
Chambers believed if you named your streets and monuments after local patriots, you encouraged a sense of nationhood and strengthened national identity among the population.
Continue reading Glorious day(s) of the happy and the free
By Corey Gilkes
August 09, 2020 – wired868.com
Interesting how fried chicken could bring to light so much issues that explain what’s wrong with our society. One chicken drumstick is all it takes to expose certain realities, all of which are integrated, interlocked and in some aspects, results of deliberate actions.
Continue reading Keep Feeding Contempt; or imagine a better world for the ‘small man’
By Dr Kwame Nantambu
Published: August 06, 2019
This article was written before August 01, 2019
As Emancipation Day approaches, it is indeed apropos to delineate the economic and political aspects of the abolition of slavery, albeit the European enslavement of African people or MAAFA— the “great disaster.”
Continue reading Abolition of Slavery — Economic/Political Aspects
By Raffique Shah
August 02, 2019
A tragedy of our times is the absolute ignorance of the vast majority of our population of the nation’s history. And for once I cannot blame this void on information technology, on the electronic devices that most young people and many mature ones are glued to, in most instances day and night.
Continue reading CLR James: man without honour in his own country
By Corey Gilkes
August 01, 2017
No, I haven’t gone completely mad, just thought I’d try to grab your attention and so make you understand the importance of understanding what power words have.
Today is Emancipation Day, celebrating the ending of the enslavement of African people. You will hear the usual platitudes and speeches about how great we are and how we “broke the shackles of slavery”….and so on. Now as cynical as I’m sounding, those are important words to hear. So too are the sights of people walking around dressed in African or African-inspired attire, all that is praiseworthy.
Continue reading MOST OF US ARE ALREADY EMANCIPATED, UNFORTUNATELY
By Sean Douglas
August 01, 2017 – newsday.co.tt
PRESIDENT Anthony Carmona yesterday publicly supported a call to have European governments, whose countries benefited from slavery in the West Indies, to pay reparations to the descendants of African slaves.
In his Emancipation Day message, Carmona said TT should support the efforts of Caricom governments as expressed by Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies and Chairman of the Caricom Reparations Commission, in an address to the British House of Commons on July 16, 2014.
Continue reading President Anthony Carmona: Pay for slavery
By Marlene Augustine
July 31, 2017 – newsday.co.tt
THOSE in leadership positions need to do more to wean citizens off of an acute dependence on State assistance, former Minister in the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts Dr Lincoln Douglas said yesterday.
Continue reading Dependency syndrome must end
By Corey Gilkes
September 03, 2011
In the days just before and after Emancipation Day I paid close attention to many of the comments and discussions on certain radio talk shows and in the newspapers and frankly I don’t know which side worries me more: those who oppose Emancipation Day or those who support it. Is kinda like de time when people responded to the charge by evangelist Benny Hinn that he saw plenty voodoo in Trinidad. Those simplistic bible-wavers who agreed with him as well as many who angrily denied what he said both had one thing in common: a profound lack of knowledge about and contempt for that ancient belief system. Likewise, many who don’t approve of Emancipation Day and things openly African displayed very clearly near complete ignorance about Africa.
Continue reading So, What’s Africa to YOU?