Emancipation Day celebrated across the GTA

People gathered on Sunday to mark Emancipation Day. On Aug. 1, 1834, slavery was officially outlawed throughout the British Empire.

By News Staff and The Canadian Press

Black community organizations in York Region held their first event celebrating Emancipation Day.

The inaugural event started early Friday afternoon, continuing into the evening at George Bailey School in Vaughan.

In Ontario Emancipation Day is celebrated on August 1st, marking the day in 1834 that the Slavery Abolition Act came into effect across the British empire. The Act freed about 800,000 enslaved people of African descent throughout the British colonies, including those in Upper and Lower Canada.

It’s now seen as a day of community reflection.

This first Emancipation Day celebration was complete with food trucks, as well as catering and barbeque. Visitors also enjoyed live music, performances and a pop-up marketplace highlighting black small business owners. Organizers and visitors describing the event as both festive, and also an acknowledgement of their fight for freedom.

“We’ve endured so much, and we want everyone to know we’re proud,” said Donovan Gordon, a teacher with the READI program. “We’re proud of being free.”

Shernett Martin, executive dIrector of ANCHOR, says Africans across the globe are celebrating the day.

“Around the globe, Africans are celebrating this day. And so it’s important because it gives us the opportunity to allow the community to come in to open up our doors to say: ‘this is who we are as African people,'” she said.

Organizers also say while the day is a time for community reflection, it’s also an opportunity to reflect as a country.

It was in late March of this year that the House of Commons unanimously voted to officially mark August 1st as Emancipation Day in Canada.

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