In commemoration of African Liberation Day, Trinidad and Eastern Caribbean representative of Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam and Chairman of NALIS, Dr. David Muhammad, said true liberation requires confrontation of societal challenges.
He was speaking at the official book launch of researcher and author Rudolph Eastman’s Mas Is a Jumbie at the Central Bank Museum on Monday.
“I think that both the idea of emancipation, but, in particular, liberation should be the kinds of foundational ideologies that we must grow up our children with, because it’s just not liberation based on the historical event, but it’s also having the responsibility to liberate ourselves from so many of the social ills that grip us as a community, we have to be able to liberate ourselves from ignorance, illiteracy, but also from poverty, from crime and violence.”
Meanwhile, Executive Chair of the Emancipation Support Committee, Zakiya Uzoma Wadada, says as it continues to promote and preserve African culture in Trinidad and Tobago, educating the next generation about their history remains crucial.
“We really have to find a way to make our young people and not only understand African history but the history of all our peoples before they came here, because we tend to teach in schools, African from enslavement, Indians from indentureship, Chinese from indentureship, but we all had histories prior to that era of colonialism, and I think it is very important that our children are now taught about who they really are.”