Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, today, I rise to acknowledge and congratulate the newly elected members of the Sixth Constitutional Convention in the Virgin Islands. The willingness of each one of them to help us move forward to achieve civil rights and self-determination as a collective people is commendable. The work that they do in this legislative session will uplift generations of Virgin Islanders to come. The legacy of the Virgin Islands--Saint Croix, Saint Thomas, Saint John, and Water Island--continues to be defined by the collective greatness of all Virgin Islanders who have resisted exploitation in the name of freedom and independence. We first exercised our right of self-determination in 1493 when a Carib war party on the island of Saint Croix fiercely resisted Christopher Columbus' expedition, preventing his men from establishing a foothold on the island. {time} 1030 Over the next 200 years, the Caribs fought colonization until they were completely eradicated in 1590. Their enduring resistance is our ancestral legacy. The island of Ay Ay, Saint Croix, from which I come, is proud to see this legacy continue in this Sixth Constitutional Convention. It continues. In 1733, the Akwamu, enslaved individuals from Ghana, fought against their enslavement on the island of Saint John and became the first organized armed resistance in the Western Hemisphere against enslavement.…”