Prince William Addresses Controversy Surrounding His Caribbean Tour: Colonialism Still ‘Weighs Heavily’ on People
usmagazine.comAn important lesson. Prince William reflected on the controversy surrounding his royal tour of the Caribbean Commonwealth countries while celebrating the contributions from the British-Caribbean communities.“My family have been proud to celebrate this for decades — whether that be through support from my father on Windrush Day, or more recently during my grandmother’s Platinum Jubilee, as people from all communities and backgrounds came together to acknowledge all that has changed over the past seventy years and look to the future,” the Duke of Cambridge, 40, said on Wednesday, June 22, in a speech at the unveiling of the National Windrush Monument in London.June 22 is Windrush Day in the U.K., which marks the anniversary of more than 1,200 Afro-Caribbean migrants arriving in the U.K.
in June 1948 and the impact they and their descendants had on the British population. During his speech at the ceremony, Prince William referenced his own recent visit to the Caribbean in March, which was met with protests and backlash at the time.“This is something that resonated with Catherine and me after our visit to the Caribbean earlier this year,” he continued. “Our trip was an opportunity to reflect, and we learnt so much.
Not just about the different issues that matter most to the people of the region, but also how the past weighs heavily on the present.”Recalling how the passengers of the Windrush — who were invited to migrate to Great Britain in the wake of World War II — were mistreated, the future king added, “Only a matter of years ago, tens of thousands of that generation were profoundly wronged. … That rightly reverberates throughout the Caribbean community here in the U.K.
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