MESSAGE BY THE HONOURABLE OLIVIA GRANGE, CD, MP MINISTER OF CULTURE, GENDER, ENTERTAINMENT AND SPORT FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE REMEMBRANCE OF THE VICTIMS OF SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE

25 March 2022
 
On this day, March 25, we pause in deep reflection, in memory of our ancestors who were captured, tortured, encaged and shackled even before they made that perilous journey called the Middle Passage to slavery on plantations in the Caribbean and the Americas.

We open the eyes of our hearts to look at them as they disembark in shackles, to be auctioned as property to merciless men who were determined to carry out these heinous acts of the worst examples of man’s inhumanity to man. We think of the many who never arrived because some jumped ship into the Atlantic Ocean rather than endure a life of slavery. Others were mercilessly thrown overboard, like those on the Zong in December 1781, by heartless men who were determined to claim insurance for loss of property.

In 2007, under my leadership, as we celebrated the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, we staged a Memorial Service by Kingston Harbour in honour of our ancestors who never had a decent burial, including those for whom the sea was their final home.

Though the enslavers shackled their body, they could not shackle their mind. They fought against enslavement and never accepted the fate that was imposed upon them. They lived their ancestral culture and traditions and used them to build resilience and fierce determination.
We remember them today. We salute them, African warriors, hands made strong by the hand of the Almighty – Captain Kojo, Queen Mother Nanny, Chief Tacky and Chief Jamaica, Quao, Accompong, Sam Sharpe, Dove, Gardner, and the woman I named Fyah. We salute the nameless, faceless supporters of the revolts, rebellions and wars, unwilling to be owned, determined to return to the freedom they knew by any means necessary.

Today we remember them like it was yesterday. The stories of their resilience and struggles have not been lost on us. Today, we govern ourselves because of their sacrifice. We boldly contest the world stage and establish our Brand Jamaica because their royal blood courses through our veins.

Today, I invite every Jamaican to pause for even one minute at any time of the day in gratitude and respect for our ancestors. We do not call them victims because indeed they were victors. We pledge never to forget. Our mission now is to advance with urgency the thrust to demand reparations for the atrocities they suffered that made the colonisers rich and bequeathed to us an unending reality of persistent poverty.

Like the ancestors, we will not be daunted. We are assured that we will overcome and build prosperity for all our people.

Olivia Grange, CD, MP
Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport