Political Quotes

“as Americans celebrate this Independence Day, July Fourth, the day the Founders declared their intention to be free from England, the day before in the Virgin Islands, July 3, we celebrate one of the most historic and spectacular days for those of us who have ancestral ties or call the Virgin Islands our home. It is the commemoration of our emancipation because on that day, July 3, 1848, the Virgin Islands became one of only two places in the Western Hemisphere for individuals to gain their freedom from enslavement by organized violent overthrow. On that day in 1848, after months of organization and planning, thousands of enslaved people, including my ancestors, left plantations throughout the island of St. Croix and converged at Fort Frederik in what was the Danish West Indies and demanded their freedom. Unfortunately, while the Governor of the time, Peter Von Scholten, declared all formerly enslaved in the Danish West Indies free, we now know that freedom is not easily free, and a declaration without full rights and privileges is a hollow declaration.”