Declared a national holiday in 1985 and celebrated on August 1 annually, African Emancipation Day in T&T commemorates the freedom of the formerly enslaved African people following 400 years of subjugation by colonial powers and interests.
Asha Wilson, a Pan-Caribbean African Sociologist, a mother of one, and a historian from T&T, has spent the better part of the last two decades as part of the narrative surrounding African Emancipation. Her life’s work has centred around understanding the history, advocating for greater ties between Africa and the diaspora, and encouraging freedom from the mental and societal yolks of colonialism and enslavement.
Wilson was born and raised in a family of educators, philanthropists, and politicians, which “had a profound impact on my life’s direction.” After leaving Trinidad to initially study international advertising at Barry University in Miami, she experienced a significant awakening in her personal and spiritual lives, which changed the course of her studies to sociology. Wilson was exposed to the NGO founded by her mother, a home for socially displaced boys, and simultaneously began to seek more knowledge around the political life and triumphs of Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia.
Since 2000, Wilson was keenly aware of the idea of Haile Selassie “as the returned Messiah/a black god, and Ethiopia as the Kingdom of Zion, never having been colonised,” which also fed into her the idea of the importance of repatriation.
When she furthered her knowledge of Haile Selassie’s impact, including his work freeing Africans on the continent and in the Western Hemisphere, and as a staunch defender of human rights against colonial and fascist powers, she was deeply drawn to the study of sociology to better understand humanity.
Returning to Trinidad in 2008, her interest in people and communities alighted, she grounded herself in the work of various NGOs, such as the Heroes Foundation, and taught briefly at her alma mater, St Joseph’s Convent. This grounding cleared the pathway to her repatriation to Africa, and she was able to secure a position teaching English in Ethiopia in 2012, where she remained for five years.
During her time in Ethiopia, she understood the reality that “we are all Ethiopians, at home and abroad,” and simply some of us have been displaced from this historic homeland. Wilson also credits her father’s influence with pushing her to study the works of Haile Selassie academically and found herself delving into the continued impact of enslavement and colonialism in the form of neocolonialism, which has driven discrimination and division against and amongst African people today.
Some might wonder about the need for African Emancipation celebrations or purport that “so much time” has passed since the end of enslavement, suggesting that society should simply “move on.”
However, according to Wilson, “the legacy of slavery is still evident globally. It is not a matter of chance or genetic predetermination that anywhere in the globe, regardless of country, the darkest descendants are at the bottom of the food chain and discriminated against.”
This racist legacy has borne the phenomenon of colourism, which divides lighter versus darker-skinned African people, and remains one of the most impactful tenets of colonialism and enslavement.
In T&T, although African descendents are not a minority in the population, there is still significant work to be done in enhancing the lives and opportunities of the community.
Specifically in the discussion of reparations, Wilson noted that Professor Sir Hilary Beckles’ speech on Emancipation Day 2024 identified that funding in the form of reparations should continue to be fought for, as it can be injected into healthcare, housing, education, and public funds that “improve the livelihood and socioeconomic status of our peoples.”
This discussion of reparatory justice is especially important in a Caribbean context, where much of our nation-building has been due to high-interest loans by former colonial powers, indebting us in huge amounts to these countries and essentially damning the pace of our economic progress. Wilson believes that there is great hope for us and looks to the future “calmly, confidently, and courageously,” with a focus on unification above all else.
Citing Haile Selassie’s speech to the African Union, “Africans at home and abroad must unite … We Africans occupy a different—indeed a unique—position among the nations of this century. Having for so long known oppression, tyranny, and subjugation, who with better rights can claim for all the opportunity and the right to live and grow as free men?” (full speech: https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/speeches-global-african-history/1963-haile-selassie-towards-african-unity/)
In a Trinbagonian context, specifically, this is a call to abandon all divisions, “between Afro and Indo Trinidadians, rich and poor, straight and LGBTQ spectrum, Rasta City or Muslim gangs,” as these divisions have been historically carved to weaken national spirit, thereby making it easy for colonial powers to divide us and conquer.
On African Emancipation Day every year, we are called to remember the men and women who refused to accept the imposition of colonial authorities, those who found strength in themselves and their communities, and who deeply believed in overcoming the grossest aberration to humanity the world has ever known.
Wilson calls emancipation “a long labour of love, a strenuous journey and battle,” and anoints Emancipation Day as a moment “to remember and revere” the bravest of those who have gone before us.
Indeed, it is also a moment for us to ensure that we never forget, “as an awareness of our past is essential to the establishment of our personality and our identity as Africans.”
Her rallying cry is not only in remembrance but to build and develop meaningful and close connections to our historic homelands, which does not need to be necessarily in the form of repatriation but in unification.
