Throughout the year, UNESCO had organized many commemorative events in close cooperation with its member states" and governmental and non-governmental organizations, such as the launching of the research and information program "the Forgotten Slaves," an exhibit at the UNESCO's headquarters in Stockholm Sweden entitled "Lest We Forget: Triumph on Slavery," the Ceremony of the Award of Toussaint Louverture Prize, the International Conference on the theme "Issues of Memory: Coming to terms with the Slave Trade and Slavery," and the International Symposium on the Slave Trade Archives Project in Havana, Cuba, and so on. The worldwide, yearlong commemoration of the 200th Anniversary of the Haitian Slave Revolution Victory was very important for Haitians and Blacks all over the world. The 1791 revolution, which took place during the 18th Century, beside the American Revolution of 1774 and the French Revolution of 1789, was excluded for years from the pages of world history textbooks, despite its contribution to the abolition of slavery in the world.
"Alexander Bedward, minister of the revivalist Jamaica Native Baptist Free Church during the period 1889-1921, emerged as one of the island's earliest black nationalists. Under the guise of religion Bedward called on the black majority to rise up and take action against the prevailing system of racial discrimination, socio-economic deprivation, injustice, the tyranny of minority colonial rule, and to establish a government representative of the people. While he was revered by the masses, attracting thousands of followers at home and abroad, he was feared by the upper classes and colonial authorities, who saw him as a threat to political stability. An antagonistic relationship developed between the government and Bedward. Eventually, he was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to the lunatic asylum, where he later died." (publication abstract);
Asunción, Paraguay: Centro UNESCO Asunción Servilibro
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
337 p, The author talks about the phenomenon of slavery in ancient civilizations ranging from general to specific to reach our country. Through documents arrive to form a complete picture of the life they led and poses a theory about his disappearance.
Reviews several books about Cuban history. The Social Transformation of Eighteenth-Century Cuba, by Sherry Johnson; Winds of Change: Hurricanes and the Transformation of Nineteenth-Century Cuba, by Louis A. Pérez Jr; Wizards and Scientists: Explorations in Afro-Cuban Modernity and Tradition, by Stephan Palmié; Espacios, Silencios Y Los Sentidos De La Libertad: Cuba Entre 1878 Y 1912, edited by Fernando Martínez Heredia, Rebecca J. Scott and Orlando F. García Martínez.;
