As Trinidad and To­ba­go marks the 188th an­niver­sary of the abo­li­tion of slav­ery, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les are urg­ing cit­i­zens to ho­n­our the sac­ri­fices and re­silience of en­slaved Africans while pro­tect­ing free­doms, pur­su­ing jus­tice and con­tin­u­ing the work of build­ing a so­ci­ety root­ed in equal­i­ty and op­por­tu­ni­ty.

In sep­a­rate African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day mes­sages, the na­tion’s lead­ers re­flect­ed on the hor­rors of the transat­lantic slave trade, the re­silience of African an­ces­tors and the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of present gen­er­a­tions to pro­tect the free­doms se­cured through their strug­gles.

They urged cit­i­zens to use the oc­ca­sion not on­ly for re­mem­brance, but as a call to ac­tion to build a more in­clu­sive so­ci­ety.