Every November 1st, in Saint-Denis, Afro-Caribbean and overseas memory leaves conference rooms and takes to the streets. It is a way of saying that the history of colonial slavery must not remain confined to specialists, but return to where its descendants live.
Saint-Denis Lights Up for Our Ancestors: Here’s Why You Need to Be There
On November 1st, 2025, the association Sonjé is once again inviting residents, diasporas, associations, and institutions to a torchlight procession departing from the Basilica of Saint-Denis and heading toward the memorial stele on Place Robert-de-Cotte. The program is simple (meeting at 5 p.m., march at 5:30 p.m., speeches, songs, and poetry at 6 p.m.), but the stakes are far greater: keeping memory alive in the suburbs, where it is still too often confined to the Republican calendar or Parisian museums.
Taking part in this event means first and foremost refusing erasure. We know how poorly colonial slavery is still taught, how misunderstood it remains, sometimes even minimized; we also know that the names of the deported are almost never spoken in public spaces. Yet in Saint-Denis, there is a stele. It exists. It carries this memory at the heart of a working-class city that is Black, Maghrebi, Comorian, Cape Verdean, Caribbean, and Réunionese. Walking toward it with a flame in hand gives material form to what many history articles fail to convey: that this history has descendants, that it still lives in our languages, our first names, our struggles.
It also means being part of a coherent commitment. Sonjé is not a collective that mobilizes only once a year. Based in Saint-Denis, the association works year-round: debates on the BUMIDOM, screenings about “the color of slavery,” discussions on the high cost of living in the Overseas Territories, roundtables with researchers and activists from Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Guiana. Every May 23rd, it co-organizes with the CM98 the Republican ceremony honoring the victims of colonial slavery. November 1st is therefore not an isolated event: it is the continuation of deep-rooted work ensuring that the memorial stele is not a dead monument, but a yearly gathering place for overseas memory in Seine-Saint-Denis.
The choice of date matters. In many Caribbean cultures, November 1st is a time for reflection, vigil, and quiet words spoken for the departed. Lighting a torch, walking together, then listening to songs or poetry afterward reconnects us with practices of transmission that, during slavery and after abolition, allowed stories to circulate when schools refused to tell them.
The march thus becomes a ritual: we leave together, arrive together, fall silent together, remember together. In a country where Black memory is often fragmented (between the national May 10th, the overseas May 23rd, Haitian dates, Guadeloupean dates), Sonjé proposes a simple gesture: holding all of it within the same flame.
Being there also means legitimizing a space. Too many commemorations of slavery take place far from the people most directly concerned, in institutional venues that are difficult to access. Here, everything happens outside the Saint-Denis – Basilique metro station, in the public space, in front of passersby, in the middle of the market, among families and neighborhood associations. It is a way of saying: the suburbs are not merely territories of security headlines, they are also territories of memory. When children see their parents walking for ancestors deported three centuries ago, they immediately understand that this history is not “exotic,” but familial.
Coming also means supporting an organization that carries memory on its shoulders. On HelloAsso, Sonjé offers a yearly membership for 20 euros alongside open donations. This is not insignificant. Memorial associations rooted in the Overseas Territories, often led by women and operating with limited resources, are the ones organizing conferences, exhibitions, screenings, invitations for historians, and May 23rd mobilizations. Without them, there would be no continuity between the nation’s grand speeches on slavery and the everyday reality of Caribbean or Réunionese families in Seine-Saint-Denis. Walking on November 1st therefore means giving political weight to this invisible labor: the more people attend, the harder it becomes to ignore this memory in budgets, cultural programming, and local policies.
Finally, taking part in the torchlight procession means sending a message to younger generations. We are not asking them to master the entire historiography of slavery, but simply to understand this:
“There was a crime, there was resistance, and today there are still people standing guard to ensure it is never erased. You can be part of that.”
In a context where many overseas or Afro-descendant youths say they do not recognize themselves in the national narrative, this kind of event becomes a bridge: it connects today’s France to its former territories, the Republic to its postcolonial citizens, the suburbs to the Black Atlantic.
So on November 1st in Saint-Denis, this is not simply “another protest march.” It is about occupying time and space with our memory, showing that it is non-negotiable, and thanking those who, like Sonjé, keep it alive without seeking the spotlight. All the more reason to be there.
Notes and References
- Sonjé Association, “Presentation of the Association”.
- CM98 (May 23rd 1998 March Committee).
- Law No. 2001-434 of May 21, 2001 recognizing the slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity (known as the “Taubira Law”).
- Myriam Cottias (ed.), Slave Trades and Slaveries: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, CNRS Éditions.
- Frédéric Régent, France and Its Slaves: From Colonization to Abolitions (1620–1848), Grasset.
- Collective, May 23rd: Memory of the Slave Trades, Slavery, and Their Abolitions, CM98 / Associative Editions.
- Patrick Baucelin, documentary The Color of Slavery, debate screenings in Saint-Denis (2024), Sonjé program.
- City of Saint-Denis (93), Department of Community Life and Memory, “Enhancement of the Memorial Stele of the Victims of Slavery – Place Robert-de-Cotte”.
