Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has assured the Spiritual Baptist community that government is working to establish a secondary school for the faith.
She made the remark while addressing Spiritual Baptist Liberation Thanksgiving Service in Moruga on Monday.
“When our children rise, the community rises. When the community rises, our nation rises. So in keeping with my thinking, we will talk to the Baptist community,” the Prime Minister said.
“We’ll work it out and plan through consultation what we do, how we go forward with the secondary school.”
Spiritual Baptists celebrated 75 years of liberation from oppression with a procession through the streets of Moruga on Monday.
Minister of Culture Michelle Benjamin praised the community’s resilience and faith.
“We had to hide to worship. We just walk on the Moruga Road, free in all of our glory, fully adorned in our spiritual attire. And who could look more beautiful than a Baptist woman? And a Baptist pastor? All you see we colours? And we walk,” she said.
“The police walk amongst us and not one laid hand on us because we are what? Free. Free to call on His name.”
Shouter Baptist Liberation Day is a national holiday in Trinidad and Tobago, observed on March 30 in commemoration of the repeal of the 1917 law that banned the Spiritual/Shouter Baptist faith.
The day honours the resilience and struggle of its members, who fought for the right to worship freely, and celebrates their vital contribution to the country’s cultural and spiritual heritage.
