23 August: International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition

Tonight and tomorrow, Tuesday, August 23rd, marks the International Day for Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition.

All of us who understand its significance need to work for August 23rd to be observed in the manner it deserves.

On the 23rd I will honor the memory of my ancestors enslaved and free in east Tennessee and western North Carolina. These are just a few. HESTER Young Broyles, born in western NC, and married, lived and died in Greeneville (died 1932); NOAH Gudger, who lived in the part of Asheville known as Lower Hominy, Sulphur Springs Post Office, Buncombe County, NC, in dwelling #10: "Noah Gudger, 45, black, [born in] NC; Jackson Bailey, 35, mulatto, NC; Caroline Bailey, 27, mulatto, NC; James Bailey, 6, mulatto, NC; Cate Lynch, 15 black, NC." (From information sent to me by a kind researcher.)

I'll also remember my Greatgreatgrandfather James Franklin "Frank" Broyles, husband of Hester; Adolphus Gudger, whom I believe to be a son of Noah, born in western NC in October 1846, who created a family with Matilda Rice, born April 1, 1850 to Mary "Polly" Ann ("Pop") Rice, a daughter of the large, Irish Protestant Rice family of Isaac and Nancy (KEITH) Rice who had 16 children.

UNESCO - the Paris-based educational, social and cultural arm of the United Nations - chose this date because the night of 22-23 August 1791, a slave rebellion began on the Caribbean island of Santo Domingo. Today San Domingo is shared by Ayiti (Haiti) & la Republica Dominicana. God bless my ancestors. I thank them for their lives and mine, and will try to honor them by my work.

23 August: International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition