Reflecting on Emancipation Day

I have taken a few extra days to reflect on what Emancipation Day meant for me this year, after taking in the stories and wisdom shared around me in community.

For me, Emancipation Day is a time to pause, reflect, and remember our ancestors. Let us remember the courage and bravery of the Jamaican Maroons who faced adversity, whose bodies were enslaved, and whose fearlessness refused them to be mentally enslaved. It is on their shoulders I stand. Let us not forget the Black Loyalists, the Black Refugees, and our deep lineage of African Nova Scotian history in this province that has shaped the very foundation we are still building on today. Let us not forget those who have paved a way for our freedom.

It is our turn now to make sure we do our part and commit. Commit to action to make our communities better, and demonstrate we are our ancestors’ wildest dreams. In the words of Lawrence Hill, as he talks about his journey and commitment to raising awareness of injustices to impact change:

“To my allies, whose commitment must be a personal commitment to fight against oppression and racism, leave a legacy where you can be your ancestor's worst nightmare. Live by your passion and have perseverance.” 

At church this past Sunday, Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard’s wisdom, love, and hope ignited the room, when she shared,

“Reflect on what legacy you want to leave behind, so the world is better for our children, our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren - then be intentional and make it possible.”

I know the legacy I want to leave.

Emancipation Day serves as a reminder of Canada's history and involvement with the business of slavery, capitalism, and the lasting trauma that continues to inflict upon African Nova Scotian and Black Communities today. It’s a truth that can’t be ignored. Slavery was an institution that used our ancestors and their bodies to build a world from the ground up, but designed for someone else. It wasn’t only a few in power that benefited from operating slavery as a business. Slavery was designed as a complex capitalistic system that monetized and maximized the hard labour and exploitation of those who came before us, so that entire populations could profit from us.

The impacts of slavery are still apparent in every aspect of society. There has been a history of slavery in Canada and Nova Scotia, but there is a present-day entrenched version of it - a modernization of slavery and oppression that manifests in new ways all of the time.

We see it in how people are hired or chosen for promotion. We see it in who is trusted to make decisions about funding and allocation of wealth. We see it in how institutional power is protected. We see it in how communities of people, are continuously displaced or pit against each other to fight for minimal resources that someone else controls. We see it in how ‘success’ is defined by the masses and in the disparities across quality of living for people in Nova Scotia.

We have the power within us to keep calling these problems forward and working together in loving action to address and rebuild.

My hope is that my stories, my legacy, and my journey has a never-ending impact on challenging the present-day realities connected to the history of enslavement, and that my children, and grandchildren continue to tell it over and over because I believe that when we become the change we want to see, you have the possibility to inspire and influence a movement. 

I know this is true because Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard said it best "The ancestors are moving mountains to see you rise.”