bigdrumnation

Reading Time 4 minsAs we mark 58 years of our journey as an Independent nation, we have the opportunity to look back on and evaluate six decade-long journey towards the aspirations that filled the hearts of our citizens that night when the Union Jack was lowered for the last time and as a sovereign people, we took up the challenge of charting our own course.  We must examine our present with an eye on the past 58 years and assess our progress in  our nation-building project, in the important areas of the economy, politics and governance, cultural and social development, nurturing our… Read More »58 Years Later, Where Are We?–Clyde Weatherhead

Reading Time 5 minsI can remember when. It was early August eight years ago. A period where each day brought another event. All related to the big finale. One question kept me in the throes of angst as it looped through my head: I know I can celebrate but, should I? I do not know how an answer eventually squeezed past the loop. Could have been because it came to me disguised as another question. It was simple in what it asked: What fool does not celebrate his homeland’s 50th anniversary of independence? I celebrated.  Class-mates and I from long gone school days descended on a nightspot in… Read More »Trinidad and Tobago’s 58th Anniversary of Independence: My View– Jeff Hercules

Reading Time 3 minsAugust is a time to remember. It begins with a heralding throughout the Anglo-phone Caribbean as Emancipation Day in which we celebrate the emancipation of slavery. We recall too Jamaica’s journey – leading the way of political independence on the occasion of its 58 year of political independence. It is also the month in which Marcus Mosiah Garvey (1887 – 1940), philosopher and founder of the Pan-Africanism movement was born, August 17. Trinidad follows the trail to bookend this history-filled month of remembrance with the commemoration of this Caribbean republic’s 58 year of political independence on August… Read More »Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition – BDN Editorial

Reading Time 13 minsIn the opening lines of his well-known poem, Robert Frost observes: ‘something there is that doesn’t love a wall’. The poem, entitled ‘Mending Wall’, deals with a stone wall dividing the properties of two neighbours. One of them, the narrator in the poem, argues that there is no need for it. He grows apple trees and his neighbour grows pines, and as he jokingly points out, there is no danger that his apple trees would ever ‘get across and eat the cones’ under the other man’s pines. The wall is therefore just a wall of prejudice, a… Read More »WALLS: THE POETRY OF POLITICAL PRISONERS: FLORA BROVINA AND PHYLLIS COARD — Nataša Tučev

Reading Time 3 mins                                                   The Jamaica Progressive League (the League) was launched September 1, 1936 in New York City by a group of patriotic and committed Jamaicans. These men and women, though living in New York and away from the everyday problems back home in Jamaica, were determined to make things better for their fellow Nationals in their homeland, while at the same time working to make America a more welcoming environment for new arrivals. The League was definite about its purpose and clearly outlined the principles essential to its program, which were as follows: 1. Universal Adult suffrage in… Read More »Lest we forget: The Jamaica Independence Journey — Sadie Campbell

Reading Time 3 mins“KEEPING THE LEGACY OF OUR ANCESTORS ALIVE” Fraternal Emancipation Season’s Greetings to all. August 1st 2020, marks 182 years since the abolition of chattel Slavery in Grenada and former British colonies. As we commemorate the end of Slavery and the beginning of our journey to liberate ourselves from the 400 years of the enslavement of Africans by Europeans, we challenge ourselves as well as the world around us to reflect on and remember the tearing apart of families, the decimation of communities, and dehumanizing of the African Man, Woman and Child that has occurred over these past… Read More »COMMEMORATING THE 182ND ANNIVERSARY OF EMANCIPATION (AUGUST 1ST 1838 – 2020)

Reading Time 5 minsPresented to the Annual Commemorative Emancipation Public Lecture Series of the Institute for People’s Enlightenment, UWI Open Campus, St. Georges, Grenada, July 2019. “I am not an African because I was born in Africa, But because Africa was born in me.” – Kwame Nkrumah Emancipation can be explained as an unfinished process of physical and psychological liberation of the enslaved persons of African descent, who had been forcefully taken by their European colonisers – mainly the British, French, Spanish and Dutch. Africans were forcibly taken from their homes especially along the western and central region of Africa,… Read More »In Tribute to our Heroic Ancestors – Editha (Nancy) Fergusson – Jacobs

Reading Time 2 minsAs a big man, I does still cry long tears for meh Mama. Ah want to go home and be cradled by Mother Africa. I was made an orphan many moons ago as a slave. Dumped in the Caribbean my destiny was an early grave. But my pigment was too black and strong to be spirited in the ground. The spirit of my pigment soon rose again on the beat of the drum. My soul weary searching for identity. On all them Colonials meh tear drops go fall. CHORUS: Ah doh want no ship or plane, no-no-no…..… Read More »Mama Africa Here I Come–Trevor ‘TULU’ Burnett

Reading Time 2 minsFrom Belize, Bahamas, and Jamaica in the north to southern Grenada, Trinidad, and Guyana, the Caribbean archipelago is abuzz with the sounds of freedom and the demand for justice. The month of August is ushered in with celebrations and revelry marking the end of slavery and increasing demands for centuries-long economic and social justice. These advancing demands for reparations across the region and continued immigrant anxieties in North America and Britain provide new additionally layered demands on the emancipation agenda within present-day commemorations across the Caribbean. According to the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC) in its 10-point plan,… Read More »Emancipation Day (2020) – BDN Editorial

Reading Time 5 minsThis picture depicts how I feel when someone says to me “… stop talking so much about the slave trade, Chattel slavery and Reparation. Their reasoning is that slavery is long gone and opening up this subject will create a rift and a separation between black and white people…” WTH!! Can someone please tell me! “When did this African Elephant leave the room?” When did REAL segregation end, when did REAL Apartheid between black and white ceased and deceased? Whenever someone tells me to stop talking about slavery all I see and hear is someone trying to… Read More »I SIS …. DAUGHTERS OF AFRICA — Bernadette Charles