To­day, Au­gust 1, 2010 is Eman­ci­pa­tion, the day on which chat­tel slav­ery fi­nal­ly end­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean and oth­er coun­tries un­der British rule, 172 years ago. That was four years af­ter the Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion was read on the site that is now known as the Trea­sury Build­ing on Au­gust 1, 1834. Al­ways a dra­mat­ic morn­ing as we gath­er on the site on the Bri­an Lara prom­e­nade where the procla­ma­tion was read, the 2010 pro­gram takes the in­ten­si­ty of the mo­ment to fur­ther heights with a new his­tor­i­cal play from Ein­tou Pearl Springer, au­thor of 'Kam­bule' the very suc­cess­ful street the­atre pro­duc­tion that is now a ma­jor fea­ture event in our Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions.

Free­dom Morn­ing Come, as the play is called, takes us in­to Port of Spain on the morn­ing of Au­gust 1st 1834, just a few yards from the ac­tu­al spot. The en­slaved are gath­ered, await­ing the Gov­er­nor, George Hill, who is go­ing to read the Procla­ma­tion an­nounc­ing what was ex­pect­ed to be the end of Slav­ery. It turned out to be the be­gin­ning of a pe­ri­od of what the British called, ap­pren­tice­ship, an un­sus­tain­able sys­tem that de­mand­ed Africans re­main en­slaved for half of each week, and en­joy the free­dom to work for wages the bal­ance of the week, for an­oth­er six years all told.

As the events of the day are recre­at­ed in the his­tor­i­cal space, through dance, song and dra­ma, the di­a­logue ex­plores the thoughts, sto­ries and feel­ings of the peo­ple gath­ered there. The pro­duc­tion has a stel­lar cast in­clud­ing Eu­nice Al­leyne, Camille Quam­i­na, Noel Blandin, Ster­ling Kent, Dara Healy, Tis­hana Williams, Bren­don La­caille and Muham­mad Muwak­il. The play will be pre­ced­ed by an­oth­er first, as the first fe­male Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Ho­n­ourable Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar, brings her first Eman­ci­pa­tion Day greet­ings from the Gov­ern­ment to the peo­ple of Trinidad & To­ba­go.

Kam­bule, the fa­mous Eman­ci­pa­tion Day street pa­rade, now wit­nessed by many in­ter­na­tion­al cam­eras, be­gins im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the the­atre pro­duc­tion. Then it is the rest of the glo­ri­ous day at the Lidj Ya­su Omowale Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage, down at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um.

The pub­lic is in­vit­ed to at­tend free of charge.