In ho­n­our of Black His­to­ry Month, and to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Black com­mu­ni­ties and per­sons of African de­scent in the Unit­ed States and around the world, the U.S. Em­bassy Port of Spain raised the Black Lives Mat­ter (BLM) flag at its Queen’s Park West com­pound to­day, Tues­day 15 Feb­ru­ary 2022. 

Em­bassy staff and their fam­i­lies at­tend­ed the flag rais­ing cer­e­mo­ny and con­firmed their com­mit­ment to pro­mot­ing di­ver­si­ty, eq­ui­ty, and in­clu­sion in all Em­bassy pro­grams and ac­tiv­i­ties.

Up­on rais­ing the flag, U.S. Chargé d’Af­faires Shante Moore said:

“The Unit­ed States was found­ed on the prin­ci­ple that all peo­ple are cre­at­ed equal, and it is an ide­al we have yet to reach but con­tin­ue to strive for, to form a more per­fect union as ar­tic­u­lat­ed in our Con­sti­tu­tion.  This Black His­to­ry Month, I en­cour­age every­one to take time to re­flect how Black his­to­ry and cul­ture have in­flu­enced our lives through mu­sic, art, lit­er­a­ture, pol­i­tics, sci­ence, busi­ness, and sports, and their roles in our strong bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Unit­ed States and Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

A re­lease from the Em­bassy says the BLM flag will fly over the Em­bassy for the re­main­der of Black His­to­ry Month.

The Black Lives Matter and the United States flag at the U.S. Embassy to commemorate Black History Month. (Image courtesy U.S. Embassy Port of Spain)

“Black His­to­ry Month is held each Feb­ru­ary to com­mem­o­rate and cel­e­brate African Amer­i­can his­to­ry and the African di­as­po­ra.  While Black His­to­ry Month orig­i­nat­ed in the Unit­ed States, it has re­ceived in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion in coun­tries in­clud­ing Cana­da, Ire­land, and the Unit­ed King­dom.  Black his­to­ry is Amer­i­can his­to­ry, and we ho­n­our the pro­found im­pact of African di­as­po­ra cul­ture and the im­mea­sur­able con­tri­bu­tions of Black Amer­i­cans to the world,” the Em­bassy re­lease stat­ed.

The phrase “Black Lives Mat­ter” seeks to raise aware­ness of and re­spond to on­go­ing racism in the Unit­ed States and abroad.  It al­so draws at­ten­tion to the need to end sys­temic racism and in­equity ex­pe­ri­enced by com­mu­ni­ties of colour, and most acute­ly, peo­ple of African de­scent. 

The Em­bassy notes that rais­ing BLM flags on U.S. Em­bassy and con­sulate flag­poles through­out the world is a pow­er­ful state­ment that calls at­ten­tion to ef­forts to ad­vance racial eq­ui­ty and ac­cess to jus­tice in the Unit­ed States and world­wide. 

Ac­cord­ing to Em­bassy, “the flags serve as a vis­i­ble re­minder of the col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ad­vance so­cial jus­tice is­sues and the U.S. gov­ern­ment’s res­olute com­mit­ment to con­fronting the in­jus­tices that ex­ist to­day.”