IT IS generally agreed that the new Emancipation Park is a vast improvement to the scenery in New Kingston as well as providing a tranquill place of rest and recreation. It also seems, as the Prime Minister's 'swearing in' function has shown, that it might be a future forum for certain State functions.
However, as a matter of historical truth, shouldn't there be somewhere in the park, an acknowledgement of the tireless work of Englishmen such as Granville Sharpe, Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce, among others, who made Emancipation possible. Wilberfore, in particular, made the abolition of slavery his life's work but died four weeks before the Emancipation Act was passed by the British Parliament on August 29, 1833.
Once it is accepted that the slaves did not free themselves in 1834, whether we like it or not, we are bound to accept that there were white people in the world even at that time who abhorred the degradation of slavery and were prepared to bring it to an end. It is niggardly not to acknowledge their efforts.
