01/08/2026
As we celebrate emancipation today may we hold deeply the perseverance, endurance, resilience and sacrifices our ancestors made for us. For it is by those sacrifices we are free today.
Free to work. Free to trade. Free to plant and grow. Free to read and learn. Free to travel. Free to dwell. Free to bear our children and nurture and keep them. Free to receive health care.
Free to be human.
Free to exist.
May we honor them by living a fulfilling purposeful life. Giving the very best of ourselves to the continued development, enlightenment, elevation, preservation, protection and freedom of our people.
And as we celebrate emancipation today, let us acknowledge our brothers and sisters still enslaved around the world, even in this modern age.
Let the sounding of the drums keep hope alive for the captives; for we are not free until we are all free.