LEADER of the Opposition Mark Golding has tabled a motion in the House of Representatives for the 24th day of October to be named and celebrated as the Day of Commemoration for the Right Excellent Paul Bogle and all those who lost their lives in the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865. The motion also called for a National Commemorative Church Service to be held on the 24th day of October of each year.

Paul Bogle was a Baptist deacon from Stony Gut who advocated for a peaceful end to slavery. In October 1865, he led a group in protest against the extreme living conditions, police brutality and injustice, to the Morant Bay Courthouse. Paul Bogle and his followers were met with brute force by colonial authorities who shot and killed more than one thousand Jamaicans, including hundreds who were executed, flogged or otherwise punished. Hundreds of homes and many cultivations were burned or otherwise destroyed.

Bogle was hanged by colonial authorities at the Morant Bay Courthouse on October 24, 1865, for leading the uprising which became known as the Morant Bay Rebellion. He has since become an enduring source of national pride, self-belief, courage and resilience among the Jamaican people and was conferred with the Order of National Hero in 1969.

The motion tabled by Golding is in keeping with a resolution passed in 1999 by the St Thomas Parish Council (now St Thomas Municipal Corporation) and supported by several other parish councils for a National Commemorative Church Service to be held in memory of Paul Bogle and the thousands of Jamaicans who lost their lives in the Morant Bay Rebellion.

Golding gave notice that he intends to move the motion at the next sitting of the House of Representatives.