Did you know that in 2021, Canada officially designated August 1st as Emancipation Day, but that Grey County is celebrating the 162nd Emancipation Day Festival this August 2-4 in Owen Sound?
The Emancipation Day Festival is the longest and most continuous festival in North America and commemorates the British Commonwealth Emancipation Act of August 1, 1834, outlawing the owning, buying, and selling of humans as property throughout all Britain’s colonies. This Act marked the start of freedom for over 800,000 Africans and their descendants.
Visit:
Sheffield Park Black History Museum
Grey Roots Museum & Archives
Watch:
As Is, Where Is: Negro Creek Documentary
Read:
Emancipation Day: Celebrating Freedom in Canada by Natashia L. Henry
River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer
The Hanging of Angelique by Afua Cooper
Policing Black Lives by Robyn Maynard
Son of Elsewhere by Elamin Abdelmahmoud
Disorientation by Ian Williams
The Polished Hoe by Austin Clark
Any Known Blood by Lawrence Hill
In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas
They Passed This Way by Howard N. Sheffield