Train Ride Fires Up Call For National Recognition of August 1st
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Senator pledges to make August 1st National
Emancipation Day across Canada
The
Halifax senator, one of only a few Afro-Canadians in the Upper Chamber,
was a keynote speaker at the 6th annual Emancipation Day Underground Freedom
Train ride. She told the huge audience that she is going to work to make August
1st a federally proclaimed national day to honour Emancipation Day.
Senator Bernard
shared the microphone with the Toronto Caribbean Carnival's Rita Cox, the
honourary conductor of the 2018 Freedom Train. They stood on the steps of the
Rotunda inside the TTC Union Station. The pair were surrounded by people
wanting to join them on a special subway train ride to mark the August 1,1834
proclamation abolishing slavery in the British Empire and to honour the people
who escaped to Canada on the Underground Railroad.
The TTC provided a
private subway train that took 1,200 passengers from Union Station to the
Sheppard Station. Arriving at midnight there was a second ceremony to mark the start of the first of August.
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