Dr Glenville Ash­by

NEW YORK-In a keynote ad­dress to mark Black His­to­ry Month, Trinidad and To­ba­go Con­sul Gen­er­al Rudrawa­tee Nan Ram­goolam chal­lenged Afro-Trinida­di­an young peo­ple to ful­fill the rich­ness of their cul­tur­al her­itage. In a speech that de­tailed the his­to­ry and sig­nif­i­cance of the oc­ca­sion, the re­cent­ly-ap­point­ed en­voy to New York laud­ed the achieve­ments of the African Di­as­po­ra who she de­scribed as "an in­te­gral part of the Trinidad and To­ba­go com­mu­ni­ty," hav­ing made an in­deli­ble con­tri­bu­tion to the na­tion in every field.

She em­pha­sised the need for the na­tion's young peo­ple to learn more about their cul­ture and peo­ple who have ex­celled in var­i­ous dis­ci­plines. She iden­ti­fied Dr Er­ic Williams, Sir El­lis Clarke, ANR Robin­son, CLR James, Michael An­tho­ny, Bri­an Lara, Beryl McBurnie, Leroy Clarke, Pat Bish­op and George Bai­ley as some of the many ex­em­plars the com­mu­ni­ty has pro­duced. She al­so men­tioned the strug­gles of the Shouter Bap­tist faith, the role of Sen­a­tor Bar­bara Burke, and the civ­il rights ac­com­plish­ments of Tubal Uri­ah "Buzz" But­ler.

Ram­goolam said the T&T's Gov­ern­ment was fo­cused on hu­man re­source de­vel­op­ment "as a key com­po­nent of its macro­eco­nom­ic strat­e­gy," and there­fore it is im­per­a­tive to recog­nise those who have ex­celled. "Too many of our youths are with­out pos­i­tive men­tors," she said, adding that "cel­e­brat­ing great per­sons in our past and present will of­fer a point of ref­er­ence," for those need­ing di­rec­tion and the fruition of their fullest po­ten­tial. She not­ed that cul­ture was sig­nif­i­cant to the de­vel­op­ment to peo­ples and na­tions, and the on­ly way to en­gen­der self re­spect.

"If you don't know your­self, no one will know you," Ram­goolam re­marked. She went on to of­fer the con­sulate's sup­port to­ward this en­deav­our, and promised a grander event in the com­ing year. The Con­sul Gen­er­al's ad­dress was fol­lowed by a cul­tur­al and re­li­gious fan­fare, fea­tur­ing drum­ming, dance, an Or­isha in­vo­ca­tion, po­et­ry, his­to­ry read­ings and a lit­er­ary ex­hib­it.

The event was held at Trinidad and To­ba­go Con­sulate in down­town Man­hat­tan and was at­tend­ed by many lead­ers of the In­do-Trinida­di­an com­mu­ni­ty, in­clud­ing Gopaul Lall, vice- pres­i­dent of the East In­di­an Mu­sic Acad­e­my, Imam Ahmed Ali, of the Sun­nat-ul-Ja­maat, and Deep­ak Ra­man, of the Arya Spir­i­tu­al Cen­tre.

Black His­to­ry Month, al­so called African-Amer­i­can His­to­ry Month in the Unit­ed States, was first cel­e­brat­ed in 1976 and has its roots in Ne­gro His­to­ry Week cel­e­bra­tions which be­gan five decades ear­li­er. The month is al­so ob­served in the Unit­ed King­dom and Cana­da.