Cherisse Moe

As the na­tion marks 192 years since that land­mark day on Au­gust 1, 1834, the Pan­el of African Lib­er­a­tion (PAL) is stress­ing the ur­gent need to keep shin­ing a bright light on glob­al re­sis­tance against se­vere an­ces­tral in­jus­tices. Kern Solomon, pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer for PAL, says Eman­ci­pa­tion Day of­fers an ide­al time for so­ci­ety to pause and ap­pre­ci­ate the im­mense pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions made by African-de­scen­dant com­mu­ni­ties both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

“Our jour­ney is at no means at an end,” he as­serts.

The gen­e­sis of PAL traces back to a ded­i­ca­tion of aware­ness and lib­er­ty. Solomon crossed paths with Ivan Wick­am, now the in­ter­im pres­i­dent of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, dur­ing the 2025 Eman­ci­pa­tion street march while head­ing to the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. Both men agreed on an im­me­di­ate re­quire­ment for per­son­al ac­tion cen­tred on cul­tur­al and so­cial ad­vance­ment for black peo­ple. Fol­low­ing a foun­da­tion­al gath­er­ing in De­cem­ber, Solomon and six co-founders laid the struc­tur­al ground­work that sus­tains the move­ment to­day.

To cap­ture this year’s ethos, PAL chose “The Awak­en­ing” as the theme for its in­au­gur­al ob­ser­vance. “It rep­re­sents the con­tin­ued call for our cit­i­zens to snap out of an in­som­ni­ac state that has hin­dered the eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of us all,” he de­clares. “The mes­sage is that we as a na­tion will be­come con­scious­ly an­i­mat­ed and take our right­ful place in this world. A place of great no­bil­i­ty and pride. We car­ry on the clar­i­on call of Mar­cus Mosi­ah Gar­vey: ‘Up up ye mighty race and ac­com­plish what you will.’”

Restor­ing African con­fi­dence

Ad­dress­ing cur­rent ob­sta­cles con­fronting black youth—such as street crime, vi­o­lence, and scarce op­por­tu­ni­ties—Solomon points di­rect­ly to sys­temic roots, stat­ing, “Cer­tain­ly, it is the lack of self-worth that has been per­pet­u­at­ed by the no­tion that we are a peo­ple with­out a his­to­ry of achieve­ments.”

He con­tends that min­i­mal ex­po­sure to African suc­cess­es breeds “a vibe of noth­ing­ness in the minds of some of our youth. There is al­so the psy­cho­log­i­cal trau­ma of slav­ery that some have em­braced as an ex­cuse and not as a tool of em­pow­er­ment. If we get some of our young peo­ple to un­der­stand that our an­ces­tors re­sist­ed slav­ery in every form and fash­ion, prob­a­bly then they may be able to ad­just their think­ing and choose the path that favours up­ward mo­bil­i­ty.”

Dur­ing the plan­toc­ra­cy era, op­pres­sors de­lib­er­ate­ly stripped slaves of their names, fam­i­ly, self-es­teem, and spir­i­tu­al prac­tices. Em­pha­sis­ing that re­cov­er­ing those foun­da­tion­al pil­lars of­fers a vi­tal com­pass for cor­rect­ing mod­ern dys­func­tion, he opines: “Our in­sti­tu­tions should tai­lor aca­d­e­m­ic cur­ric­u­la to cul­ti­vate iden­ti­ty and dig­ni­ty be­cause ac­count­abil­i­ty re­quires ac­knowl­edg­ing that cur­rent so­ci­etal fric­tion stems from in­ter­gen­er­a­tional trans­mis­sion.”

Out­reach and ac­tion

Com­bat­ing ma­lig­nant so­cial ills through tai­lored cul­tur­al ini­tia­tives is al­so a high pri­or­i­ty for PAL. Plans in­volve en­gag­ing stu­dents with com­mu­ni­ty icons and men­tors, and util­is­ing dig­i­tal plat­forms and doc­u­men­taries to fos­ter pos­i­tive self-im­age.

“His­tor­i­cal con­nec­tion is a bea­con of light in nav­i­gat­ing life in per­ilous wa­ters.”

Re­call­ing the clas­sic African adage that it takes a vil­lage to raise a child, Solomon points out that schools, house­holds, and neigh­bour­hoods must op­er­ate as a uni­fied ecosys­tem and be­lieves part­ner­ships re­main cru­cial for ex­pand­ing these ef­forts. He notes that PAL has al­ready con­nect­ed with the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee dur­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s em­bry­on­ic stages, and was pleased that the vet­er­an ad­vo­cates wel­comed their in­put and laid the ground­work for a con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion along­side “our big Sis­ter Za­kiya Wada­da.”

Guard­ing Uni­ty

Com­ment­ing on the re­cent con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the In­di­an High Com­mis­sion’s sched­ul­ing of an open house on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day—be­fore backpedalling amid pub­lic back­lash—he notes, “A house di­vid­ed against it­self can­not stand.” Not minc­ing words, he adds, “I see this house as T&T with dif­fer­ent rooms of eth­nic­i­ty. No room is greater than the oth­er. Any act to sow dis­cord or dis­re­gard for each oth­er’s cul­tur­al her­itage must be open­ly and ve­he­ment­ly re­ject­ed. What was en­gen­dered by the In­di­an High Com­mis­sion is an ero­sion of diplo­mat­ic trust. The mis­guid­ed ges­ture con­jures at­ti­tudes of in­sen­si­tiv­i­ty and ap­a­thy to ho­mo­ge­neous am­bi­tions and will not au­gur well for race re­la­tions go­ing for­ward. We ac­knowl­edge that they have ad­dressed and rec­ti­fied the mis­step, but the ini­tial over­sight serves as a stark re­minder of why eter­nal vig­i­lance is re­quired to safe­guard our na­tion­al uni­ty.”

Eman­ci­pa­tion fast facts

• The Leg­is­la­tion: The British Par­lia­ment passed the Slav­ery Abo­li­tion Act in 1833, which of­fi­cial­ly took ef­fect on Au­gust 1, 1834.

• The Ap­pren­tice­ship Sys­tem: Full free­dom was de­layed for four years be­cause planters suc­cess­ful­ly lob­bied for an “ap­pren­tice­ship” phase, forc­ing the for­mer­ly en­slaved to con­tin­ue un­com­pen­sat­ed labour un­til Au­gust 1, 1838.

• Re­plac­ing the Past: When T&T de­clared Eman­ci­pa­tion Day a pub­lic hol­i­day in 1985, it of­fi­cial­ly re­placed Dis­cov­ery Day, step­ping away from the shad­ow of old Dis­cov­ery Day cel­e­bra­tions to ho­n­our an­ces­tral re­silience.