On this day, 187 years ago, the Eman­ci­pa­tion Act came in­to ef­fect, start­ing the process of free­dom for thou­sands of en­slaved men and women in the British West In­dies.

But it wasn’t free­dom in the true sense as the for­mer slaves were still shack­led by the pe­ri­od of ap­pren­tice­ship which had to be served out be­fore they were fi­nal­ly lib­er­at­ed from the plan­ta­tions and years of op­pres­sion and servi­tude.

When the en­slaved pop­u­la­tion in this coun­try­—es­ti­mat­ed to be about 25,696—fi­nal­ly got their free­dom, the vast ma­jor­i­ty moved off the plan­ta­tions, set­tling in ar­eas across the coun­try that are now well-es­tab­lished com­mu­ni­ties.

These and oth­er im­por­tant his­tor­i­cal facts about the Trans-At­lantic Slave Trade, the long fight for free­dom and the even­tu­al achieve­ment of Eman­ci­pa­tion must be kept at the fore­front.

To­day’s Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions are not on­ly an op­por­tu­ni­ty to look at key events that shaped the so­ci­ety we are to­day but al­so to re­flect on the lessons from those ex­pe­ri­ences that can help in the build­ing of a more unit­ed and stronger na­tion.

While T&T can take pride in the fact that we were the first coun­ty in the world to de­clare a na­tion­al hol­i­day to cel­e­brate the abo­li­tion of slav­ery, cit­i­zens should al­so be aware of the dif­fi­cult process lead­ing to the procla­ma­tion of that an­nu­al ob­ser­vance in 1984, on the 150th an­niver­sary of Eman­ci­pa­tion.

Com­mem­o­ra­tions were nonex­is­tent for decades due to a de­ci­sion by the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil to re­place them with Dis­cov­ery Day, a hol­i­day ho­n­our­ing Christo­pher Colum­bus and his jour­neys to the new world, in 1939.

Much cred­it is due to those who be­gan lob­by­ing for an Eman­ci­pa­tion Day hol­i­day in the 1970s. Their per­sis­tence fi­nal­ly bore fruit on Au­gust 1, 1985, with a hol­i­day and colour­ful cel­e­bra­tions that have re­mained promi­nent on the na­tion­al cal­en­dar since then.

Oth­er coun­tries in the Caribbean have since fol­lowed in T&T’s foot­steps.

No­tably, it was on­ly this year that June­teenth, which com­mem­o­rates the ef­fec­tive end of slav­ery in the Unit­ed States on June 19, was fi­nal­ly cel­e­brat­ed with a pub­lic hol­i­day.

The of­fi­cial cel­e­bra­tions for the peo­ple there, just like the abo­li­tion of slav­ery it­self, came decades lat­er than in the Caribbean.

But as re­cent events have shown, for de­scen­dants of the en­slaved in the Amer­i­c­as and across the world, the dark­ness of the Trans-At­lantic trade con­tin­ues to af­fect our so­ci­eties.

The painful ex­pe­ri­ence of some 20 mil­lion men and women, snatched from their homes in Africa and brought in chains to the Amer­i­c­as has too of­ten been glossed over and mis­rep­re­sent­ed. But now there is a de­mand for the truth to be told and ac­cept­ed, as well as for repa­ra­tion to be paid by the for­mer colonis­ers who de­rived great eco­nom­ic wealth through the sweat and toil of the en­slaved.

Cast­ing off the lin­ger­ing so­cial, men­tal and po­lit­i­cal shack­les is an on­go­ing process but to­day’s com­mem­o­ra­tions pro­vide space for de­bate and re­flec­tion in the quest for heal­ing and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion.

This is al­so a time to cel­e­brate the rich lega­cies of the Yoru­ba, Hausa, Con­go, Ibo, Ra­da, Mandin­go, Kro­man­ti and Temne that are re­flect­ed in our peo­ple and cul­ture.

A blessed Eman­ci­pa­tion Day to all.