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AFRICAN HERITAGE MONTH

FEBRUARY - 2015


African Heritage Month in the news...

 

2015 will also mark the launch of the Provincial Heritage Day holiday, honoring Viola Desmond and additionally, UNESCO has declared 2015 through to 2025 the “International Decade for People of African Descent: Justice, Recognition, Development.” In recognition of these events, the theme for African Heritage Month 2015 will be “Justice: People, Places and Events.”

At a pre-launch event in Greenville, African Nova Scotia Affairs minister Tony Ince referred to a special feature speech at the UN last December by Prof. Sir Hilary Beckles of the University of the West Indies. Decrying the ravages of slavery and modern racism, Beckles said: "Let us all resolve to make decent this decade as the door to a century that must witness the triumph of our collective and shared conception of humanity at its best. Let us all resolve furthermore to clean up the mess left by slavery and colonization and move on as one humanity in peace and with Love."

What was said...

  • “Many Nova Scotians know more about what happened on a bus in Montgomery Alabama than a theatre in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, seven years earlier, but I don’t think I take anything away from Rosa Parks when I say it’s time Canadians learn about what Viola Desmond did.” Cumberland North MLA Terry Farrell.
  • "Important synergies should therefore be achieved through the International Decade in the fight against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance." UN Prolamation on International Decade for People of African Descent: Justice, Recognition, Development.
  • "This is your place. It is not the place of one people or one group, but it is our place. You are welcome here at any time." Dr. Elizabeth Cromwell at Black Loyalist Heritage Centre reception on Feb 5

  • “Slavery… is just the mother of racism ... there is no difference between racism and slavery.” Black journalist Carrie Best at the Marshall Inquiry in 1988

  • The real names of our people were destroyed during slavery. The last name of my forefathers was taken from them when they were brought to America and made slaves, and then the name of the slave master was given, which we refuse, we reject that name today and refuse it. I never acknowledge it whatsoever. Malcolm X

  • Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally. Abraham Lincoln

  • Racism, xenophobia and unfair discrimination have spawned slavery, when human beings have bought and sold and owned and branded fellow human beings as if they were so many beasts of burden. Desmond Tutu

  • I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word. Martin Luther King, Jr.

  • Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.  Rosa Parks

  • Racism is taught in our society, it is not automatic. It is learned behavior toward persons with dissimilar physical characteristics.  Alex Haley

  • I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that's how I operate my life. Oprah Winfrey

  • Evil is the shadow of angel. Just as there are angels of light, support, guidance, healing and defense, so we have experiences of shadow angels. And we have names for them: racism, sexism, homophobia are all demons - but they're not out there. Matthew Fox

  • Racism springs from the lie that certain human beings are less than fully human. It's a self-centered falsehood that corrupts our minds into believing we are right to treat others as we would not want to be treated. Alveda King

  • One of the worst things about racism is what it does to young people. Alvin Ailey

  • Racism is a much more clandestine, much more hidden kind of phenomenon, but at the same time it's perhaps far more terrible than it's ever been. Angela Davis