Garvey’s son celebrates Emancipation Month in Toronto Garvey’s son celebrates Emancipation Month in Toronto

TORONTO: Dr. Julius Garvey, son of Jamaica’s first national hero, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, and his grandson, Chase Garvey-Daniels, celebrated Emancipation Month at community engagement events in the Greater Toronto Area, reminding the black community to work towards greater self-awareness.

On August 4, Dr. Garvey participated in a ceremony at Mel Lastman Square to hoist the red, black, and green BlackL iberation flag designed by his father. The event followed Mayor Olivia Chow’s proclaiming August as Emancipation Month on August 1.

Dr. Garvey said the flag was given to the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1920 at the First International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World, which took place in Harlem, New York, attracting over 2000 delegates from 22 countries. He said it was there that the organisation’s magna carta - the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, and the (concept) of the flag was developed.

“The red (represents) ... the blood that was shed and the sacrifice so that we could be here; the black represents us as a people. And I just want to insert one of my father’s quotes, which I like, and it’s that ‘the black skin is not a badge of shame, rather it is a symbol of our national greatness’, and the green has to do with our wealth ... .”

Dr. Garvey offered that the greatest way in which anti-black racism can be fought is for people of African descent to know who they are as a people.

“As my dad said, ‘knowledge is key, knowledge is everywhere, all you have to do is go out and find it’. ... It’s up to each and everyone of us to find that knowledge that we need, that knowledge about who we were, what we have become, and what is it that makes this a symbol of national greatness.”

Dr. Garvey further referenced his father saying, ‘character is your most important possession.’ He said this was instilled in him and his older sibling, Marcus Jacques Garvey Jr., who died in 2020. He said growing up with two Garvey parents, he always knew that he was African and that being an African is not just the word, geography or history, but ‘a whole tradition and culture that go back to the beginning of civilization’.

Garvey-Daniels commented on the sense of unity he felt at the evening’s event.

The ceremony was organised by the City of Toronto’s Confronting Anti-Black Racism (CABR) Unit in partnership with the Global African Communities Network (GACN), Afro-Caribbean Farmers’ Market, and the Network for the Advancement of Black Communities (NABC).

In Brampton, Ontario, Dr. Garvey spoke at another flag-raising event, and at the JAMBANA One World Festival founded by the late Denise Jones and her husband, Allan, and now produced by their sons, Jesse and Jerimi.

“We are here not only to mark this significant date of Emancipation, but to give thanks and appreciation to those ancestors, such as Jamaican hero, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, who was a ... political activist and the founder and first president-general of the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League) in 1914. (He) influenced a generation of civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and, of course, Bob Marley,” said Marjorie Taylor, Brampton’s 2015 Citizen of the Year, who received the Emancipation proclamation alongside Dr. Garvey.

She urged the audience to learn from the past in order to effect positive change for present and future generations.

The City has proclaimed August 1, Emancipation Day, since 1998 and Emancipation Month in August since 2019, and has officially recognised the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015 to 2024) since March 2019.

On August 1, 1834, the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 came into effect across the British empire, emancipating more than 800,000 enslaved Africans in British-controlled regions around the world, including Canada.

In 2021, the government of Canada officially designated August 1 as Emancipation Day across Canada. Throughout the month of August, Toronto residents may participate in a range of events designed to empower and celebrate black Torontonians.