Press Releases 2007

U.S. Embassy Provides Grant to Jamaica National Bicentenary Committee

The United Stated Embassy presented a grant valued $J520, 000 to the National Bicentenary Committee on February 6 to support activities for the commemoration of the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Transatlantic Trade in Africans.

Among the events organized by the Bicentenary Committee in collaboration with the US Embassy will be two lectures on the topic, “African voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Beyond the silence and shame.” The first lecture is scheduled for Thursday, February 15 at the Courtleigh Auditorium, New Kingston starting at 6:00 p.m. The second lecture will be held on February 26 at the Northern Caribbean University in Mandeville, Manchester.

Presenter for both lectures will be Dr. Anne Bailey, Jamaican-born author of the book, “African Voices of the Atlantic Trade: Beyond the Silence and Shame,” and Professor of History and Africana Studies at State University of New York in Binghamton. After migrating from Jamaica to the US where she attended high school, Dr. Bailey studied English and French at Harvard University and later got her Ph.D. in African History and African Diaspora Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Bailey’s activities as an educator have included visiting professorship at Rutgers University, Bryn Mawr College, Cambridge College, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University.

The National Bicentenary Committee lectures are part of the activities planned by the United States Embassy’s Office of Public Affairs in support of African American History Month. Other events to take place include a film series from the critically acclaimed series “The Blues,” at the Red Bones Café every Thursday throughout the month of February, and a Blues concert featuring Chicago Blues singer Zora Young as well as Jamaica’s own A.J. Brown, Dean Fraser and the Maurice Gordon Group. The concert which is free to the public will be held on Friday, February 23 at the Devon House in Kingston.