Hello Meltingpot Readers,
So, today’s #FridayFavorite isn’t coming from America, but rather, from Denmark. Ms. Meltingpot is giving Denmark, the country that gave the world the Lego brick, two big, brown thumbs up for their recent installation of a public statue of a Black woman, aka, Mary Thomas, aka the Rebel Queen.
The New York Times covered the story and notes that:
Mary Thomas, [was] known as one of “the three queens.” Thomas, along with two other female leaders, unleashed an uprising in 1878 called the “Fireburn.” Fifty plantations and most of the town of Frederiksted in St. Croix were burned, in what has been called the largest labor revolt in Danish colonial history.
Raise your hand if you knew that the Danes had colonies in the Caribbean? If you didn’t know, I won’t be mad. Not many people are aware that what we now know as the U.S. Virgin Islands – St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas – used to be owned by Denmark. I actually learned about the history of Denmark’s colonizing past after watching a fascinating documentary at the Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival about a white, Danish woman with curly hair who discovered she had African ancestors from the Danish colonies. She was shocked by her findings.
Anywho, considering I live in a city with a 45 percent Black population and we only have one public statue of an African-American, I’m pretty impressed that a majority-white country like Denmark is paying homage, not to a Danish hero, but to a woman who stood up to Danish colonizers and basically destroyed their way of life in the colonies. That’s some serious truth and reconciliation if you ask me. It’s also a good first step in acknowledging one’s blood-stained past, instead of trying to erase it from public memory, which the country basically has been doing up until now. Of course, the statue of Mary Thomas wasn’t created by the Danish government – that was the work of two talented and determined Black female artists – but the government had to okay the project and we give them credit for that.
I hope more countries (I’m talking to you, USA), cities and towns take inspiration from Denmark and see the value of honoring their African heroes and heroines, even if it means owning up to a painful history. Sorry to be so cliché, but the truth is the only thing that will set us free.
Peace!
