(Kaieteur News) – President Dr. Irfaan Ali marked Emancipation Day 2026 with a message honoring the resilience of Guyana’s African ancestors and calling on citizens to build a more unified nation in their memory.

In his address, President Ali described slavery as history’s cruelest system, but stressed that formerly enslaved Guyanese responded to freedom not with bitterness but with vision. He said they “fixed their gaze steadily upon the future,” working to build a better life for generations to come.

The President traced this legacy through the Village Movement, in which freed Africans pooled resources to buy land and establish self-sustaining communities, communities he called “the bedrock of resilience” and “seedbeds of nationhood.” He credited African-Guyanese contributions across education, agriculture, mining, sports, arts, and politics as foundational to the country’s development, saying their efforts represent “the very pillars upon which modern Guyana stands.”