Emancipation Day: Are We As Black People Really Free?
Black people must die for our liberation efforts to be taken seriously — and it has to stop
NOTE: This is a one-year anniversary reposting of an article that first appeared in Neri Magazine (which, regrettably, is no longer available online). In the interest of having my Neri articles publicly accessible, they have been shared here on Medium for posterity.
According to the online Free Dictionary, the legal definition of “emancipation” is the act or process by which a person is liberated from the authority and control of another person.
In the modern legal context, the concept of emancipation refers most often to minor children seeking to be released from the authority of their parents. Historically, however, it is most notably associated with freeing Black people from slavery. On August 1, 1834, the Slavery Abolition Act that had been passed the previous year by the parliament at Westminster came into full force and effect. It formally ended chattel slavery throughout most of the British Empire, including Canada. Enslaved people of African descent were legally free to pursue their own desires and were no longer under the authority and control of other human beings.
