Accra (Greater Accra) 02 August 2000
The curtains were lowered on activities marking this year's
Emancipation Day, which officially falls today, with a wreath-laying ceremony
to honour the lives and legacies of the stalwarts of Pan-Africanism.
Wreaths were laid at the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Mausoleum, George
Padmore Memorial Library for African Affairs and the W. E. B. Du Bois-Marcus
Garvey Memorial Centre, all of which house the tombs of fallen heroes.
Representatives of the Government and people of Ghana, chiefs and
people of Africa,
Africans in the Diaspora and the youth of Africa laid separate
wreaths.
The 11-day event held in Accra, Cape-Coast and Assin Manso, was
under the theme
"Emancipation: Our Heritage, Our Strength - Deepening the
African Consciousness".
Emancipation Day, which commemorates the abolition of chattel
slavery in British colonies in 1834 and the Americas in 1865, is celebrated by
descendants of African slaves in the Caribbean.
It came to Ghana following a state visit to the Caribbean by
President Jerry John Rawlings in 1997.
A Pan-Africanist Memorial Day, book fair, female fitness walk and
a women's day preceded the official opening by President Rawlings at which he
stirred the emotions of the packed audience with his unorthodox style of
veering from his prepared speech.
The main theme in his speech was on the need for African
intellectuals to use their knowledge to free the minds of their people from
Eurocentric attitudes.
Another major part of the programme was the pilgrimage to Assin
Manso in the Central Region where an Emancipation durbar was held at the site
of the proposed "Monument of Return."
The Monument, to be erected on the tomb of returned enslaved
ancestors, would be in memory of all Africans who lost their lives during the
slave trade.
There was also an enactment of the March of the Enslaved by the
Ghana Actors Guild, which depicted emotional scenes of the slavery era.
Some Africans in the Diaspora, most of whom were celebrating the
event in Africa for the first time, expressed satisfaction about the programme.
Yet others, mainly Ghanaians and newsmen, expressed
disappointment, saying that organisation was poor with frequent change of
venues at short notice, while some of the programmes started very late.
GRi…/