A Day of Remembrances + a Playlist

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August 23

August 23 is a significant date in history. It’s a day that honors victims of oppression and recalls horror from our world’s past. Both Black Ribbon Day and International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition are honored on this day. What’s more, both of these remembrance days honor protests that led to lasting change. It’s a day to honor and also to reflect and learn. Isn’t that why we have these remembrance days? We need to remember or we will forget.

BLACK RIBBON DAY

Black Ribbon Day is a remembrance day for victims of totalitarian regimes. Regimes such as Nazism and Stalinism. It’s a day that celebrates the rejection of oppression. It’s also a day to remember the people -- humans just like us -- who were deported, enslaved and murdered by these oppressive regimes. The date of August 23 is significant for Black Ribbon Day, as it marks the date the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was signed in 1939. This was a pact between the USSR and Nazi Germany, a joining of two brutal regimes. 

For more than 40 years, millions of people lived in terror and repression. There were executions of humans, mass arrests, deportations, the suppression of free speech. It was decades of crimes against living, breathing human beings living in Central and Eastern Europe. 

From this oppression came Black Ribbon Day. The remembrance day started in the 1980s with a series of protests. These protests against human rights abuses in the Soviet Union gained momentum, leading to the 1989 Baltic Way protest. On the day of the Baltic Way, roughly two million people formed a human chain across the Baltic republics - a region that desperately wanted independence from the Soviet Union. Fast forward two years: in 1991, the Soviet Union crumbled. It’s a reminder that protests can work and can affect meaningful change.

REMEMBRANCE OF THE SLAVE TRADE

Since 1998, we have remembered the slave trade every August 23 with International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. It’s a day that forever memorializes the transatlantic slave trade. The remembrance day is intended to highlight the tragedy of the slave trade so that all of us remember it and learn from it.

The date of August 23 is also significant for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade. It marks an uprising by self-liberated slaves that led to the end of the transatlantic slave trade. The uprising was the start of the Haitian Revolution: an uprising led by self-liberated slaves in Haiti against French colonial rule. What’s more, it was successful! The uprising ultimately resulted in a state free from slavery and ruled by non-whites. Again, it’s a powerful reminder that protests can affect lasting change. 

As Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Director General, stated about the remembrance day, “We honour the memory of the men and women who… revolted and paved the way for the end of slavery and dehumanization.” Well said and well remembered. 

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A Remembrance Playlist

Our resident artist extraordinaire, the epic Abby Yemm, made a power playlist to rev up every resist bone in your body.

Be well and play on, Nellies. XO

maggie laubscher