This August 23: Remembrance, and the Work Still Before Us

Later this month, on August 23, UNESCO will mark the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition. The date honors the night in 1791 when enslaved people on Saint-Domingue rose up and set in motion the end of the transatlantic trade. It was first commemorated in Haiti and on Gorée Island in Senegal.

This day sits close to my heart. After my years at the LA84 Foundation, I founded the Tubman Truth Corporation, named for Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth: two women who risked everything to free others and to win the vote. The organization has since run its course, but its mission never ended:  it lives on as a movement I continue to carry forward, with a purpose that is plain: to help end modern slavery, which the International Labour Organization estimates still holds roughly 50 million people in forced labor or forced marriage today. 🕊️

This autumn the Olympic movement will hold its first Games on African soil, in Senegal, the very country that holds Gorée. Young athletes will gather on ground that knew both the depths of human cruelty and the courage to resist it.

Freedom and dignity are the birthright of every person. Sport belongs to everyone because dignity belongs to everyone. ✊🏽 Whose story of courage will you carry forward this month?