01/08/2025
In a time marked by untold human suffering, we must never forget the harrowing experiences our foreparents endured — forcibly uprooted, chained, shackled, and packed like 'sardines in a can' into ships, bound for unknown lands, never to return to the soil of their birth.
You were viewed as less than human. Your names were stripped away, your diets altered, your bodies abused, and your minds broken — all in an effort to erase your identity and humanity.
Today, as the world cries out for peace, the powerful words of Peter Tosh still ring true: “I don’t want no peace. I need equal rights and justice.”
In this beloved nation of ours, that is the cry of every citizen — equal rights and justice.
And yet, despite unimaginable odds, you have endured. You have risen. You have become a vital part of the very fabric of this land you now call home.
As you commemorate another Africian Emancipation Day, remember that your perseverance has brought you here — not just to survive, but to celebrate.
Let us continue to liberate ourselves — not just from the chains of the old colonial masters, but from the grip of today’s economic oppression, disguised in systems meant to keep us bound.
Rise, my African Brothers. Rise, my African Sisters.
Happy African Emancipation Day.
Lonsdale Williams
Chairman
Congress of the People
