When the clock struck midnight on August 1, 1838, Reverend William Knibb declared “The
negro is free”. In a letter to a confidant, Knibb recalls: “Never did I hear such a sound. The
winds of freedom appeared to have been let loose. The very building shook at the strange
yet sacred joy”. In Jamaica, like other British colonies, black persons would gather at town
squares and other public areas to celebrate the end of one of the most brutal acts of
mankind. This celebration of the end of enslavement, on paper anyway, continued
throughout the years.

According to Falmouth Post, from as early as 1860, August 1 saw many Jamaicans
march through the streets, playing music and waving flags with biblical scriptures
written on them. Led by clergymen who called themselves ‘Apostles of Liberty’,
children were given cake and lemonade in decorated classrooms. In the afternoon,
persons would gather at public meetings where sums of money were collected and
used for charitable causes.

Still, after the Morant Bay Rebellion, there came rumours that another black uprising
would take place on Emancipation Day in 1866. With these fears, many missionaries
did not organise around the event anniversary, and due to this, public observance
dwindled in the decade. However, come the 1870s, persons started to
commemorate the day once more. This effort was led by black persons of lighter
complexion.

According to the historians Brian L. Moore and Michele A. Johnson in the book They
Do As They Please: The Jamaica Struggle for Cultural Freedom After Morant
Bay, these lighter-skinned black Jamaicans wanted to forget the shame of their
ancestral enslavement while some among them hoped that by supporting the
celebration of freedom, they would call attention to how much progress had been
made by them as a class. Many had been elevated in society, both in terms of their
class and complexion and saw themselves as advocates for those not in the same
position. Thus, throughout the 1870s, tradesmen would march through the streets –
beginning in Parade and eventually find themselves in Spanish Town for a picnic.
This effort kickstarted other remembrance activities in other parts of the island.

By the 1880s, August 1 was unofficially restored as a public holiday. Popular stores
in Kingston would close on that day, while church services, lectures, and picnics
were happening throughout the island. In 1893, the holiday was added to the list of
mandatory public holidays when C. S. Farquharson introduced the Public General
Holidays bill. The bill increased the number of public holidays from nine to 10 and to
include the new addition, Emancipation Day. From then onwards, other events such
as athletic competitions, cricket matches, concerts, etc, were added to Emancipation
Day celebratory activities. Throughout the years to come, the holiday would have
special events held on that day. The Jamaica Patriotic League held their annual
meetings on the day. In 1894, the People’s Convention, organised by the black
journalist and politician Dr Robert Love was held on August 1. A July 27, 1901,
article published in his newspaper Jamaica Advocate stated: “It is the intention of
the People’s Convention to celebrate the day in a manner befitting the event and the
obligation of the children of the emancipated … . It is a day on which to recall the
history of our Fathers, and to contemplate the destinies of our children”.
Still, the holiday faced opposition throughout the rest of the decade and the 1900s.
Some were of the view that labourers would lose 10 working days each year while
others argued that the remembrance of Emancipation would revive old animosity
and hate between white and black people in Jamaica. Others were of the view that
the celebration of Emancipation did nothing for the Black people. The Daily
Gleaner, in an August 14, 1918 editorial, titled ‘Observe Or Not’, stated that the
holiday was not celebrated in any other country where slavery existed, so why
should it be a holiday in Jamaica. This was untrue as, by this time, Emancipation
Day was celebrated in other British colonies in the region. Nevertheless, the editorial
piece sums up their argument with: “But as we have said, August 1st has no sort of
religious significance today, and after eighty years can have none. There is therefore
no reason in the world why anyone should endeavour to observe it as of special and
of particular significance.” During the 300th Celebrations in 1955, which saw
Jamaica commemorate 300 years of English colonisation, many supported that
celebration and called for an end to the Emancipation holiday. In her scholastic
paper, ‘Commemorations in Jamaica: A Brief History of Conflicts’, Veronica M.

Gregg states, “Emancipation Day, it was asserted, was racial and included only
black people, the celebration of the English conquest of Jamaica was multiracial or
nonracial and inclusive and therefore more national and more representative of
Jamaica.”
Despite the opposition, though, there was no amendment to the Public General
Holidays and Jamaicans continue to observe Emancipation Day as an official
holiday. Organisations would also have their own celebrations. In 1934, the
Universal Negro Improvement Association organised one of the largest events to
acknowledge Emancipation Day. In 1959, the African Reformed Church celebrated
the Emancipation Jubilee with their own organised event. However, by the early
1960s with Jamaican Independence Day being August 6, many in government had
concerns over the two holidays being so close to each other. As such, in 1962, the
commemoration of Emancipation Day was suspended and replaced with
Independence Day – to be celebrated on the first Monday of August.

 

NETTLEFORD’S. PATTERSON’S EFFORTS

---

 

Emancipation Day would return on the Jamaica national calendar in the 1990s,
thanks in part to the late Professor Rex Nettleford and former prime minister P.J.
Patterson. Nettleford, in numerous of his publications and speeches on the black
race in Jamaica, saw Emancipation not as a singular event but an ongoing struggle
focus on black people liberating themselves from the past and contemporary
bondage of colonisation. As Patterson shared in a 2021 interview with The Jamaica
Observer, he shared a committee (the National Symbols Committee), headed by
Nettleford, to look at how the “country’s national symbol and observance could
contribute to sustaining our cultural unity”. The report produced, stated that there
was a vast confusion of the momentous events among young persons in Jamaica,
and as such, Jamaica, “deserves, in the case of Emancipation Day, a
commemoration, and in the case of Independence Day, a celebration”.
As such, in 1997, a bill for a double holiday where Emancipation Day would be
August 1 and Independence Day, August 6, was introduced in Parliament. However,
amendments to the Public Holiday Act faced opposition. Opposition Leader Edward

Seaga was of the view that the double holiday would lessen the importance of the
country’s Independence and questioned if the commemoration of Emancipation
would achieve anything important in the country. Bruce Golding, then president of
the National Democratic Movement, proposed that the two days be merged into one.
Despite the blowback, Patterson stood his ground and defended the
recommendation of the double holiday. Thus, the act was successfully amended,
and Emancipation Day was reinstituted as a national holiday in 1997. Ever since,
Jamaica has been celebrating both Emancipation Day and Independence Day as
two public holidays.
In recent years, there have been calls by those in the private sector that the double
holiday lessens productivity in the workplace. In 2020, news came out that the
Government was considering merging both Emancipation and Independence Day.
Also in that year, was the Don Anderson Poll where 62 per cent of those surveyed
were in favour of the Government merging both holidays. Still, as of today, there
seems to be no move by the Government to suspend Emancipation Day
celebrations or merge both holidays.
With 2023 marking the 185th anniversary of the full emancipation of black enslaved
people in British colonies, the national commemoration of Emancipation in Jamaica
continues to survive … for now.

TEF Provides Over $3.4 Million to Support Venture

Kingston, Jamaica: December 11, 2015 – State Minister in the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment Hon. Damion Crawford has welcomed news that the push to have Kingston designated a Creative City of Music by UNESCO has yielded significant success. This comes on the heels of the official announcement by UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, that Kingston was among 10 creative music cities which were designated this year.

The designation resulted from a strategic partnership between the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment through the Entertainment Advisory Board, the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) and the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC) and other stakeholders. The Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) has provided over $ 3.4 million to date to support the venture.

The process was initiated by the Ministry’s Entertainment Advisory Board in 2013 and was aimed at ensuring that Kingston becomes a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, which focuses on resuscitating the economic viability of cities through arts, culture and community. The venture then received overwhelming support from the KSAC which played a pivotal role in facilitating the successful submission of a formal application to have the city designated.

The announcement also follows a recent trip by the Ministry’s Senior Director of Entertainment, Gillian Wilkinson McDaniel and Kingston’s Town Clerk, Robert Hill to Japan to lobby for the designation to be granted at the UNESCO World Creative City Forum.

The detailed application was submitted on July 15, 2015 after several consultations spearheaded by the EAB and the KSAC with partners such as the Urban Development Corporation, University of the West Indies, Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, Institute of Jamaica (IOJ) and the Planning Institute of Jamaica.

Since then, a national steering committee has been formed with the objective of implementing projects across the corporate area which will foster the development of the creative industries in Kingston. “I am very pleased that the initiative was successful and it is further proof that hard-work and partnerships can have a far reaching impact. I am convinced that the designation will help to boost our efforts to position Kingston as a cultural city and will also enhance the appeal of Jamaica to travellers with a special interest in culture,” Minister Crawford expressed.

The Minister also believes that the designation will enhance Jamaica’s competiveness. “I am confident that Kingston’s designation as a Creative Music City will boost our standing as a competitive destination in accordance with the World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI),” he said.

UNESCO’s Creative Cities programme was started in 2004 as an initiative to unite cities from across the globe through creative industries. It is policy-driven at the municipal and national level. The network is currently formed by 69 members from 32 countries covering seven creative fields – crafts & folk art, design, film, gastronomy, literature, music and media arts.

Other cities also recognised creative cities of music include: Tongyeong (Republic of Korea), Varanasi (India), Adelaide (Australia), Idanha-a-Nova (Portugal), Katowice (Poland), Salvador (Brazil), Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo), Liverpool (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) and Medellín (Colombia).

For further information contact:

• Alyssa Taffe
• Public Relations Officer
• Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment
• 64 Knutsford Boulevard
• Kingston 5
• Tel: 920-4926-30, ext: 5989

Parliament in London is an old­ fashioned place. When members gather in the House of Commons, the sea of faces is generally wrinkled, white and male. The chaplain who leads them each day in prayer is emphatically not. The Rev. Rose Hudson­Wilkin is the first black woman to serve as chaplain to the speaker in the House of Commons. She broke the same barrier when she was appointed chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II. She was also the first woman, and the first person of color, to run her parish in Northeast London.

She currently juggles all three of those roles, shuttling back and forth between the poor, diverse communities of her churches and the magnificent, rarefied worlds of Westminster and Buckingham Palace. It has been a long journey for the girl who was raised in poverty by her aunt on the shores of Montego Bay, Jamaica. “I didn’t grow up feeling sorry for myself and thinking, ‘Oh, gosh, I’m poor,’ ” Hudson-
Wilkin, 53, said in an interview. “Because that was the life of everyone around you. When a dice has been thrown and that is your life, you learn to live with your life. You grow from it.” Now she tries to impart that message to her parishioners.

Preaching In A Poor Neighborhood
Her church in the neighborhood of Dalston is surrounded by housing projects. There is violence in this community, and there are gangs. There is also passionate worship. On a recent Sunday morning, the congregation sang out in call and response, a Peruvian melody for a traditional Christian prayer. Gwen Gutzmore remembers interviewing “Reverend Rose,” as she’s known, for the job in 1998. It was just a few years after the Church of England began to allow female priests. “There were members within this same congregation who didn’t want a woman priest,” says Gutzmore. “It took some time, but they came around.” Eileen Skarrett, a church warden, arrived in Dalston in 2001. “When I got invited to the church, it was a black minister,” Skarrett says with a laugh. “I was much surprised.” She has been a regular ever since. Many of the voices in these pews have the lilting cadence of the Caribbean. The Rev. Hudson­Wilkin said a prayer in front of a very different­looking congregation last year, at the funeral for former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. At St. Paul’s Cathedral, she led some of Britain’s most powerful men and women in solemn prayer. “The days of man are but as grass, for he flourisheth as a flower of the field,” she intoned. “For as soon as the wind goeth over it, it is gone.”

Living In Different Worlds
Hudson­Wilkin first arrived in the United Kingdom for training as a lay evangelist. She returned to live in 1985, and has been a chaplain to the queen for 15 years. In 2010, she was appointed chaplain to the House of Commons. Almost no one else in the Church of England straddles these different worlds in such a high­profile way. In each sphere, she tries to pull people out of their bubbles and help them see the larger world. She gives the queen and members of Parliament a glimpse of those who struggle to get by.

“As I meet with them, I reflect back to them the impact of policies on people in an area like this,” Hudson­Wilkin explained. And in minority communities, she delivers messages that she doesn’t hear from white clergy. Hudson­Wilkin remembers staring down mourners at a funeral for a young man who was stabbed to death. You all riot when police kill a black man, she told them. “And yet in the last 10 years, we have killed — we have killed in our community — over 300,” she continued. “What are you saying about the value of life?” Hudson­Wilkin celebrates her uniqueness. On a popular radio program called “Desert Island Discs,” she said the songs she would like to be stranded with include Harry Belafonte’s “Island in the Sun,” and another old Caribbean classic, the Calypso song “Hot Hot Hot.” “I just absolutely love Calypso,” she gushed on the BBC show, “and this one in particular, wherever I am, if I heard it, then I’ve just got to dance.” The Church of England’s leadership has been slow to reflect its members’ diversity. “Only around 2 percent of clergy come from ethnic minorities,” says Michael Ledger-Lomas, a lecturer at King’s College in London who studies Christianity. “About 20 percent of all worshippers within London, for instance, belong to ethnic minorities. So I think there’s no question that there’s a demonstration effect.” But Hudson­Wilkin is not content to be a demonstration, or a figurehead. She is now actively pushing the Church of England to ordain female bishops. Some say it could happen this year. When asked if she thinks it likely, Rose Hudson­Wilkin replies: “I believe in miracles.”

Matthew Alexander Gooden is college bound freshman with highly rated “academic”, “athletic” and “artistic” talents. He will attend the Frank R. Seaver College of Science & Engineering at Loyola Marymount University (LMU), Fall 2015. Matthew is the eldest son of Lisa Maree Campbell Gooden, Esq. and Gary Anthony Gooden – Jamaican nationals (and naturalized US citizens). He was born (April 22, 1997) and raised in Los Angeles, California, where he resides with Lisa, Gary and younger teenage brother, Marcus.

Matthew graduated June 5, 2015 from Harvard Westlake School, a top 20 nationally ranked college prep school. A recipient of academic and athletic scholarships from LMU – Matthew’s current goal is to strive academically and Orchestra, Tuba obtain a civil engineering degree, play at the highest level of competitive college soccer, as well as potentially play professionally. Matthew is also a talented artist- both visual and musical – and enjoys music production. His musical repertoire can be found online on SoundCloud (soundcloud.com, Search “Emzhi”).

He is very focused both in and outside of school. He commenced playing soccer (AYSO), baseball and basketball at age 4, ultimately focusing on soccer at the competitive “Club” level (Coast Soccer League) at age 8, then the more competitive “pre-Academy” level at age 14, and onto the elite “Academy” level at age 15. Matthew started Taekwondo at age 5, attained his 1st Dan (1st degree black belt) in 5 years, at age 10, and then his 2nd DAN (2nd degree black belt) at age 14. While in 6th grade at the St. James Episcopal School and well on his way to being a well-rounded student athlete with top ISEE scores, Matthew was accepted into all of the 5 independent schools (Buckley, Windward, Oakwood, Campbell Hall and Harvard Westlake) to which he had applied for middle school (7th grade). While at HW (middle and high school) he exceled in Track and Field, setting and holding the high school record for the 330 meter hurdles, and played Varsity high school soccer as a freshman and sophomore (while still also playing at Club and then pre-Academy levels outside of high school). Top scorer for HW during the 2012/13 CIF season, he was also awarded top soccer player for the school as well as being “All Conference First Team CIF”. However it was his hard work, and talent as soccer player in the elite US Soccer “Academy” level outside of high school, that provided him the opportunity to play not just on the US West and East Coasts, but also internationally at the annual Dale Farm Milk Cup in Northern Ireland (UK) in 2012 and 2014. Matthew’s academic profile from a top 20 nationally ranked college prep school and his achievements as an elite US “Academy” level player, meant that by the time he was a high school junior he was a well-rounded student athlete being closely reviewed by over 25 coaches from Division 1 colleges and universities, ultimately verbally committing to LMU before the Fall semester of his senior year.

Personal Soccer Accomplishments

• 1997 Boys ODP Summer Pool 2010 (U13)
• Invited by US Soccer Federation to attend US National Training Days for B97 kids in May 2011
• Milk Cup 2012 (Northern Ireland) – Vase Champions
• SCDSL – U16 – Flight One Champions
• Harvard Westlake High School – Athlete of the month, January 2013
• CIF: 2013 Mission League: All League First Team
• Harvard Westlake High School – 2012-13 Varsity Boys Soccer “Most Valuable Player” of the season
• 2013/14 US Soccer Development Academy Season: Third highest scorer for the Strikers FC U16 Academy team
  http://ussda.demosphere.com/teams/60852305/47187210-60852392/TEAM.html
• 2014 Dale Farm NI Milk Cup – Top Goal scorer for the OC Blues.

10th Grade Art by Matthew A. Gooden

Self-Portrait based on Van Gogh’s “The Night Café in Place Lamartine in Arles”, Hand Morphing into a Squid

Tae Kwan Do

• 1st Dan 2007, 2nd Dan 2010, 2nd Dan 2014