Dear Editor,
Every year, I make it a point to be present at the National Park for our Emancipation Day celebrations. It is one of the most meaningful days on our calendar — a day we owe, in large part, to elders like the members of ACDA, who have carried this observance forward for more than thirty years. That work deserves our full respect and gratitude. Without their persistence, we would not have the foundation we are standing on today.
But this year, standing there, a few things stood out to me clearly enough that I feel compelled to write them down and share them with all of us.
We need to modernise how we share our history. The story of Emancipation, and the story of the Pan-African movement that shaped it, is one of the richest in our national narrative. But the way we tell it has not kept pace with how people — especially young people — receive information today. If we want that history to live in the next generation, it has to reach them where they are.
We need to intentionally bring younger people in. Not as an afterthought, but as organizers, planners, and decision-makers. The institutional knowledge our elders hold is invaluable, but it has to be actively transferred, not just witnessed from the sidelines.
Building capacity in our communities is not optional — it is imperative. A national celebration is only as strong as the villages and communities that feed into it. We need to invest in the people and structures at that level.
We need to think bigger about scale. Right now, Emancipation Day is a single day. Last month, I saw what Tobago’s Heritage Month calendar looked like — different events in different villages throughout the month, building toward one main national event. That is the model. Guyana should be expanding our celebration into a full week of festivities, so that a visitor can come to the Caribbean, spend time in Tobago for Heritage celebrations, and then travel to Guyana to experience a week-long Emancipation road trip through our own communities. That is a real tourism product, and we are leaving it on the table.
I want to be clear about something: I do not engage in doom and gloom. I don’t think our community needs another voice cataloguing what’s wrong — that department is already well-resourced and highly effective. What I am offering here is not criticism. It is a call to build.
My mother, whose birthday was yesterday, has told me the story of the Pan-African movement many times over the years — how it started, and how ACDA has carried the torch for our national celebration for over three decades. I say this to honor her and to honor them: what they built matters, and it deserves respect, not replacement.
At the same time, we are at a crossroads. I know there have been splinter groups over the years, born out of personal disagreements rather than differences of vision. I won’t pretend that hasn’t cost us as a community. But I am asking — kindly, and with as much courage as I can find — that we come together sincerely. Not to erase what came before, but to build on it, deliberately and with the next generation’s progress in mind.
We have the raw material: a proud history, a diaspora that wants to engage, a regional model in Tobago that shows what’s possible, and elders who built the foundation we’re standing on. What we need now is the will to unite, modernise, and expand — together.
Let’s move forward. Together.
Yours truly,
Aggrey Marsh
