I note your editorial of 29 December 2020 titled ‘If Sam Sharpe could speak from the grave’ in which you inferred that our national hero would not be pleased with “the Jamaican Government declaring a day in his honour if the matter is shrouded in secrecy”. Your depiction was further exacerbated by the description of those of us who were responsible as “trifling Jamaicans”. This, I believe, is unfortunate and must come from ignorance of the facts of the situation.

Allow me to bring to the attention of the Jamaica Observer that the intention of my ministry to have a day proclaimed in honour of our National Hero, Right Excellent Sam Sharpe, has been in the making for a while. It was in fact publicly declared and carried in at least one of our newspapers.

Janet Silvera, of The Gleaner, in an article titled ‘Sam Sharpe to get his own day after 187 years’, reported on this following my announcement at the annual Sam Sharpe celebration in Kensington, St James, in 2018: “The Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport has announced plans that it will be putting things in motion for the observance of the first Sam Sharpe Day for the national hero.”

It must also be stated that over the years, Horace Hinds of the Observer has also reported on the events. For our part, we in the ministry continued the research and discussions and engaged the relevant protocols.

Once finally determined, including with Cabinet approval, my ministry coordinated with the office of the governor general in relation to the elaboration and staging of the proclamation. It was decided then that, in accordance with COVID-19 protocols, we would not plan for the usual ceremony which would include Governor General Sir Patrick Allen reading the proclamation in the presence of relevant persons, as we have done over the years with Ms Lou Day, Bob Marley Day, etc. Instead, my ministry would include the full text of the Proclamation of Sam Sharpe Day along with my message and the endorsement of Mr Derrick Kellier, former Member of Parliament of St James Southern; Mr Homer Davis, current Member of Parliament of St James Southern and former mayor of Montego Bay; Mr Leroy Williams, mayor of Montego Bay; and Mr Heroy Clarke, Member of Parliament for St James Central, as a full-page advertisement in The Gleaner and the Observer.

We also sent out a press release through which we had hoped the information to the public would be generally and widely circulated, including the possibility of discussion points on the matter throughout the media. In addition, the proclamation was posted on social media platforms. Hence, I am at a loss by the description that the proclamation was “shrouded in secrecy”.

In fact, the role of my ministry in the St James-based celebration cited above has expanded these past four years. As minister of culture I decided to provide funding and partnered with Mr Kellier, who initiated the ‘Flames of Freedom’ project and kept it going for 20 years without Government support. This was in order to assure its continuity and greater dynamism going forward. Prior to that, the ministry’s involvement was through active organisational support from the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) office in Montego Bay in the staging of the event.

Among the areas I identified to ensure national focus, profile and recognition was in having December 27 declared Sam Sharpe Day and devising a public education campaign regarding Sam Sharpe and other enslaved Africans in the important role they played in the freedom we enjoy today. Janet Silvera also referred to this in the above-mentioned article as she quoted from my message at the event: “…to give it a home where it can be sufficiently nurtured and measured for greater impact on the national Jamaican community. We are committed to heightening the national awareness of the contribution of Sam Sharpe and his band of followers for the freedoms we experience and take so much for granted in modern Jamaica”.