Dear Editor,

What is the true meaning and purpose of Emancipation celebrations?

Is it to decorate a few buildings and public spaces with colours of the green, black and gold? Shouldn’t there be more to this fire screen of Emancipation Day celebrations?

I believe our Government could make Emancipation Day more meaningful in the lives of many of our people and offer them a more meaningful desire for the day in question.

Many who wear the colours in many styles and fashions do not know the true reason they wear them.

The Government could free up some of those Crown lands to the native poor, offer amnesty to those labelled as squatters, and show the people the true reason we should celebrate our freedom. We can only progress and move forward when we truly demonstrate care for the poor.

I often wonder if and when reparation is handed down by the relevant guilty ones, what will truly happen to the people of this land? Mostly we are descendants of our slave ancestors.

Let me hope when the next Emancipation Day comes around the Government of the day will give the people a reason to believe and grasp the true meaning of Emancipation Day.

“The poor we will have with us always,” but there must be a quest to transform their lives.

Alrick Davis, JP

alrico_dee@yahoo.com