Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has endorsed a proposal for a British slavery museum in the city to help combat modern-day racism as "welcome and timely". The idea has come from the Fabian Society which says the museum could help address discrimination against London’s black and minority ethnic population by challenging centuries-old tropes about racial inferiority.

The Fabian Society report in which the suggestion is made quotes Omar Khan, the director of the Runnymede Trust: “Until and unless Britain comes to terms with this history it will be impossible to understand much less eradicate the views that continue to justify racial inequalities today. It is unacceptable that the capital city of a nation that built a global empire and its wealth in large part as a result of its role in the slave trade has no significant museum or monument marking the role that London and Britain played in these historic atrocities." Bristol, Liverpool and London were the three main cities to benefit from the slave trade. Both Bristol and Liverpool already have museums covering this aspect of our history.

David Olusoga, historian and presenter of the BBC Two documentary, Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners, also endorsed the proposed museum.  “The impact of the slave trade and enslavement is already stamped onto the fabric of London, but in ways we have learnt not to notice. Britain played a central role in the Atlantic slave trade and the fortunes built on the back of slavery flowed back to Britain. A new museum, in the heart of the city, would help us to acknowledge a history that for the most part is hidden in plain sight.”

Omar Khan added history dictated that the government and London’s financial sector had a “moral obligation” to help fund a museum.

​Read an article on this story here. Read the Fabian Society release here.

This poem was especially written for the 200th anniversary of the Peterloo massacre by Andrew Rudd, Poet-in-Residence at Manchester Cathedral, and featured in the Peterloo Commemoration Service on 7th July. A collectable letterpress ‘broadside’ print of the poem is available, in a limited edition of 200. The title lettering by Stephen Raw, is taken from a clandestine banner made after the massacre. This broadside has been printed at the Incline Press, Oldham by Graham Moss and Kathy Whalen, and costs £5. Please contact Andrew Rudd if you would like one. 

The Runnymede Trust, a race equality thinktank, is urging the government to make lessons on migration, belonging and empire mandatory in every secondary school in England. The Windrush scandal has exposed a “shocking lack of understanding” at government level about the winding up of the empire. At present just 4% of pupils taking GCSE history choose the “migration to Britain” option, which also covers the topic of the British empire.

The report states: “Migration and empire are not marginal events: they are central to our national story. As it stands the story we are telling is incomplete”. The reports findings are contested by the Department of Education, however historian and broadcaster David Olusoga said: “I find it hard to believe that the Windrush scandal could have been possible if we were a country that was aware of and educated in the history of empire, decolonisation and migration after 1945.” 

​Read more here and find the report itself here.

“The Windrush scandal didn’t just come out of nowhere. It was born out of decisions made in another age by men who are long dead. But at its heart was a belief. A belief that no matter what the laws of citizenship might say, Britishness was fundamentally a racial issue and the black and brown people could never really be British. It was that belief that led British governments to spy on their own people. It was that belief that led British politicians to draft laws that were deliberately, intentionally, designed to discriminate on grounds of race and those laws became the ghost in the machine that have come back to haunt modern Britain and to wreck the lives of the children of the Windrush.” ​David Olusoga. The Unwanted: The Secret Windrush Files. BBC 24th June 2019. See it on BBC iPlayer now.

This is the question asked by historian and broadcaster David Olusoga in a Guardian comment piece on reaction to Cambridge University's decision to investigate its links with the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

"Cambridge and its colleges are rich. Staggeringly rich. And – spoiler alert – some of the gifts and bequests buried deep within that mountain of wealth will have come from benefactors who were slave traders and slave owners. This is true of other universities, here and abroad. Yet the same commentators who endlessly accuse students of being closed to new ideas and unwilling to face uncomfortable facts have rushed to condemn the university’s investigation into its own past. Their argument, in essence, is that we’re better off not knowing."

After going through some of the old excuses being wheeled out (such as 'grievance archeology'), Olusoga states: "...if Cambridge, the university from which the abolitionists William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson both graduated, had set up a project to explore its role in the ending of slavery, there would have been back-slaps all round. Everyone is happy for the history of slavery to be investigated so long as the investigation examines the parts in which we look good."

The Cambridge announcement is not about "dredging up the past, self-flagellation or any of the other blithe dismissals we’ve heard. It is about breaking the historical silence and uncovering a past that was whitewashed."

Read the full article here. 

'Slavery Routes' is a new 4-part documentary which examines the history of enslavement back to the 7th century. It is described as the 1200 year story of "a world whose territories and own frontiers were built by the slave trade", a trade which saw over 20 million Africans deported, sold and enslaved.

The producer's statement says: "When shootings specifically target the black American community, like in Charleston; when the police shoot down an unarmed black man in Ferguson; when nearly 2/3rd of the poor in Brazil are blacks; when the “statues of shame” still adorn numerous French cities… It is time to question the roots of evil and to understand why racism and anti-black discrimination remain so persistent. In June 2015, Barack Obama stated that “The legacy of slavery […] casts a long shadow, and that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on. […] It’s not just a matter of overt discrimination. […] societies don’t overnight completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior.”

Slavery Routes' will be shown in different countries on various TV networks. As we hear of upcoming showings we will advertise them on this website. If you hear of a showing, please let MJR know and we will publicise it.

Find out more and watch the trailer here.

 In a blatant example of selected reading of the Bible, a new exhibit at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., features an abridged version entitled ''Parts of the Holy Bible, Selected for the Use of the Negro Slaves'. It shows how Christian missionaries converted enslaved Africans to Christianity by teaching them the Gospel... except the parts about freedom, equality and resistance. Obviously they knew those parts were there!

The censored version removes 90% of the Old Testament and half of the New Testament. It has been described as: "the enslavers extended remix of the King James version of the Bible, leaving out all that unnecessary junk that might lead slaves to turn on their masters."

Read more here.

MJR is about addressing legacy of both colonial enslavement and industrial exploitation. One of the most significant events in UK history affecting the latter was the Peterloo Massacre of  August 16, 1819 in Manchester when 60,000 peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators were charged by cavalry resulting in 18 deaths and over 700 severe injuries. Described as “the most important political event ever to take place in Manchester.” by the Guardian (founded as the Manchester Guardian as a direct outcome), the 200th anniversary of Peterloo will take place next year. Many events and activities are being planned to mark the anniversary (more information here) and MJR is helping plan one of these: a special commemorative service at Manchester Cathedral on July 7. More details to follow.

Also marking this anniversary is the Mike Leigh film 'Peterloo', now on general release in cinemas. The film tells the story of the context and build-up to the events of August 16, 1819, and of the day itself. It gives a telling insight into the conditions of the working classes and comparative ease and wealth of the factory owners and landed ruling classes that resorted to drastic measures to hold onto their power. Many reformers and commentators of the time compared the plight of the working classes to that of the enslaved, referring to 'white slavery', and a number of abolitionists were also involved in the struggle for worker's rights. The film leaves the viewer to draw their own parallels with modern-day Britain. Recommended for those who wish to learn about an important piece of our history, which, like the truth about enslavement and colonialism, has been conveniently neglected.

Dr Robert Beckford is delivering a lecture "Is God a white racist? 'Woking' Gospel music in Britain" at Manchester Metropolitan University on Wednesday October 10, 5-6:45pm.

​"How might we meaningfully reflect on the church’s complicity with racial terror in the Caribbean? And what is the role of British gospel music in articulating the memory of slavery, its continued impact and its overcoming? Entangling ideas from theodicy (the problem of evil), pentecostal epistemes (prayer, singing) and Christina Sharpe’s “In the Wake: On Blackness and Being” (creative and critical cultural production) this practice-based presentation explores the sources for a new urban ’social gospel music’ genre."

Admission by ticket only. Book here. Part of Black History Month 2018.

On 18 August 1518 the King of Spain, Charles I, issued a charter authorising the transportation of slaves direct from Africa to the Americas. Previously they had been taken by way of Spain or Portugal.

This quincentenary is of a tragic event that caused untold suffering and still today leaves a legacy of poverty, racism, inequality and elite wealth across four continents. But it also quite literally changed the world and still geopolitically, socially, economically and culturally continues to shape it even today – and yet the anniversary has been almost completely ignored.

“There has been a general failure by most historians and others to fully appreciate the huge significance of August 1518 in the story of the transatlantic slave trade,” Professor David Richardson, University of Hull’s Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation.. Read more here.