Good morning all, I am grateful to be here with you as we proudly celebrate Emancipation Day 2016, a day where we recognize and honor the strength and invincible spirit bestowed to us by our ancestors. Every year as a nation we join forces with our regional neighbors and reflect on the injustice, humiliation and unthinkable suffering our ancestors bore during one of the most challenging times. When persons were viewed as property and treated under the harshest conditions.

Emancipation allows us to look into our past without fear, it allows us to show the utmost gratitude to our forefathers who fought through and arose victorious from the hands of the oppressors. That is what makes this day so significant. It is vital for us to continue to honor their memory, as it is because of the tough sacrifices they made that we are able to be here today; free, free to choose, free to make our own decisions and free to speak. It is their resilience and perseverance that we should all seek to uphold.

On August 1, 1834, marked a new beginning for our African slave ancestors and their offspring and where their vision of liberation became a reality. They were no longer just picturing the hopes of freedom; they were finally going to live it. The relentless fight and firm belief that freedom was, and should be; theirs empowered them to never give up.

Turks and Caicos on this Emancipation day celebration, there is much to be learnt from what this day stands for; we have inherited a spirit of strength, determination and courage. We must respect the tenacity of our ancestors and the foundations they have laid, by guarding the freedoms which we have gained as a result of their willpower.

As a nation and throughout our communities we must never lose hope, never surrender to unjust ideologies and as hardships present itself, let us not falter but remain resilient as our forefathers. We must be our brother’s keeper, at all times. As our ancestors, their strength in part came from one another; we ought to remain united as they did. Emancipation speaks volume on unity, it is not me alone or you alone to fight the battle of emancipation but it is us, together as one.

Today let us celebrate triumph over oppression, let us commit to the principles of peace, forgiveness, love and most importantly diversity to which our national strength as a people has allowed us to prosper. In closing I say happy Emancipation Day! God bless you all and may God bless our ‘Beautiful by Nature’ Turks and Caicos Islands.