Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced yes­ter­day that Cab­i­net has ap­proved a change of name for the Eman­ci­pa­tion hol­i­day. 

This Au­gust 1st, the new name will be African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day. 

He made the an­nounce­ment at the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at White­hall.

Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley said, “The time has come for us to make it quite clear what eman­ci­pa­tion means; and who is be­ing eman­ci­pat­ed.”

He said he no­ticed in­ter­na­tion­al­ly that oth­ers were, “at­tempt­ing to climb on­to the Eman­ci­pa­tion band­wag­on and at­tempt­ing to add ap­pendages to it”.

Row­ley said since Trinidad and To­ba­go had led the world in mak­ing Eman­ci­pa­tion Day a hol­i­day, he want­ed to make it clear that “eman­ci­pa­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go is as a re­sult of the eman­ci­pa­tion of slaves”.

“There’s no com­par­i­son be­tween slav­ery and any oth­er form of hu­man in­dig­na­tion,” Row­ley said.

He added, “We are de­scen­dants of slaves. We have a du­ty to pre­serve our his­to­ry, or lega­cy and make our claim with­out apolo­gies to any­one.”