Archbishop Gray-Burke: Remember why we shout

Head of the Council of Elders Shouter Baptists of TT Archbishop Barbara Gray-Burke is urging Spiritual Baptist worshippers to remember why the shout.

During Spiritual Shouter Baptist Liberation Day celebrations at the Ark of the Covenant Empowerment Hall, Churchill Roosevelt Highway, Maloney on Wednesday, Gray-Burke reminded the congregation about the oppression they had to endure under the 1917 Shouters Prohibition Ordinance which was abolished in 1951.

The law banned Spiritual Baptists from practising their faith in public.

"They never jail the Spiritual Baptist for just being Spiritual Baptist. It's when we ring the bell they lock us up, when we hold the flowers, shaking the shack-shack they lock us up. So know why allyuh shouting today for. Know what allyuh celebrating...

"Now after they put us through all this, they shouting more than us, they hosting functions more than us, but they can't keep what they did to us out of the books and out of history...

"They wanted to make this a festival, thinking we don't know what is a festival. I said, ‘No, we want a day for banks to close, schools to close’ and that's how I fought in Parliament as a temporary opposition senator."

Gray-Burke told Newsday it seemed far-fetched when she first started speaking about a holiday.

“My elder, who died, told me holiday brings schools. And because he put that in my brain, I fought for a holiday and now I'm fighting for schools for Baptists.

After the commissioning ceremony for the St Barbara’s Shouter Baptist Primary School in 2013, Gray-Burke said she began lobbying for the construction of a Spiritual Baptist secondary school.

"That is still my dream and wish for today, even as we celebrate another year of freedom to practise our faith without persecution. So as we shout and sing and ring the bell, let us remember the unfinished business we have.

"I don't want no cathedral for us. I want us to educate our children beyond the primary school level."

She said the organisation which she leads has been searching abroad for a sponsor to build a secondary school.

“Once this happens, I would go after that. I am going to write the authorities to go and get this help outside. That's all I need, the permission. This is my aspiration and dream. I want this before I die or else I won't rest."

Wednesday was the first time in two years Spiritual Baptists were allowed to gather in their numbers as covid19 restrictions on the number of people allowed to gather in a public space were lifted.

Many in attendance told Newsday they were happy to come together again.