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Exhibition shows Church of England’s links to slave trade

16/2/2023

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A new exhibition in the library at Lambeth Palace includes artefacts such as a “slave bible” with passages relating to freedom and escape removed and documents revealing the Church of England’s involvement in a fund linked to transatlantic chattel slavery It is the latest step in a wide-ranging programme of work launched in 2019 that aims to “address past wrongs” by researching the church’s historical links to the slave trade.

The Queen Anne’s Bounty fund, set up on 1704 to tackle poverty among clergymen, made significant investments in the South Sea Company, which the church knew was involved in purchasing and transporting enslaved people as its main commercial activity between 1714 and 1739. This fund has grown into the £9bn managed by the Church Commissioners out of which a new fund of £100m was set up last month to support projects “focused on improving opportunities for communities adversely impacted by historic slavery”.

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The exhibition also features early abolitionist views, which was intended to showcase the “spectrum of opinion about the slave trade”. However, Prof Robert Beckford said: “The focus on abolition is an obfuscation of the horror of the slave trade and a willingness to collude with the sub-humanisation of black people. What it means ultimately is there is no recognition of how the church’s theological ideas made slavery possible.” He mentions as an example the omission from the exhibition of  the Codrington plantation in Barbados, which in 1710 was bequeathed to and subsequently run by the Anglican church’s missionary arm, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG). It was known for its brutality, with enslaved people branded with hot irons bearing the SPG’s logo.

​Read more here.

​The Codrington Estate is featured in MJR's film ​‘
After the Flood: the church, slavery and reconciliation'.

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Have a virtual visit to the MJR Exhibition

8/10/2020

 
Covid-19 restrictions have meant several bookings for our exhibition have had to be postponed or cancelled. So we have filmed it. While not quite as good as the real thing, especially the interactive part, here is our digitised version of 'Colonial Slavery and its Legacy.' Feel free to use and share.

New exhibition to explore Devon's links with the slave trade

29/1/2020

 
Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery (RAMM) has commissioned artist Joy Gregory to create an artwork for an exhibition opening in October on the transatlantic slave trade. It will explore how the impact of the trade can still be seen in Devon and Exeter today.

The exhibition is part of a wider programme in 2020 that will see RAMM use its collections to ask difficult questions and explore hidden stories. Untold Stories will feature a series of exhibitions, events, artist commissions and other activities that are also designed to give a voice to neglected communities. Read more here.

MJR Exhibition in Belfast

8/11/2019

 
Following on from yesterday's Colloquium in Belfast, the new MJR Exhibition is now on display at the city's Titanic Centre and, according to MJR Chair Rev Alton Bell, "causing quite a stir". It is there as part of the ACSONI sponsored GalaNIA Cultural Gala. If you would like to hire the exhibition, there is more information here.

Colloquium: 400 Years

4/11/2019

 
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MJR's Alton Bell and Nigel Pocock will be taking part in "Colloquium: 400 years since the start of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade" in Belfast on November 7th. This event is being organised the by African and Caribbean Support Organisation Northern Ireland (ACSONI) and will also feature the new MJR Exhibition on the Legacy of Slavery.

ACSONI is an autonomous community-based organisation formed in 2003 with a proactive approach towards targeting needs and facilitating belonging among individuals from the continent of Africa, the Caribbean (West Indies) and other families in Northern Ireland with these linkages. The November 7 seminar will explore 400 years since the beginning of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, with talks on the epigenetic of slavery and research on the shipwrecked slave ships around Northern Ireland's coast.

The event is at Stranmillis University College, Belfast and runs from 2-6pm. Tickets are free, but places are limited and must be prebooked here. Download a leaflet here.

Cambridge college donates a bell to a slavery exhibition

22/7/2019

 
St Catharine’s College, Cambridge has admitted that a bell it had on display for decades was originally from a slave plantation in Guyana. The bell, which carried the inscription "De Catherina 1772”, will be donated to the Rijksmueeum in Amsterdam, Holland for a major exhibition on slavery next year. The action follows the Cambridge University announcement of an inquiry into how the 800-year-old institution benefited from the slave trade, which was responded to by MJR. ​The bell was initially hung in a belfry outside the Porter’s lodge where it was used to “summon College residents to food and to prayer”, but in 1994 it was moved to a less prominent position and arlier this year it was “shuttered” from view while its origins were investigated. Read more here.

The slavery exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, the Dutch national museum, will focus on slavery in the Dutch colonial period, from the 17th to the 19th century, and will testify to the fact that "slavery is an integral part of our history, not a dark page that can be simply turned and forgotten about". The exhibition will run from September 25 2020 to January 17 2021. More information here.

How Britain imprisoned some of the first black fighters against slavery

19/7/2017

 
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A forgotten part of the history of black people in Britain is to be revisited with an exhibition revealing how some of the most celebrated black fighters in the early struggle against slavery were once held in a British prison. During the wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France of the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, when Britain’s black population numbered no more than 10,000, some 2,000 African-Caribbean people were held as prisoners of war in Portchester Castle in Portsmouth Harbour. Read more here.

The exhibition, 'Black Prisoners of War at Portchester Castle', opens on July 20. More details here.

US National African American Museum opened

30/9/2016

 
The new National African American History and Culture Museum, part of the Smithsonian was recently opened by President Obama. It's existence is the result of a struggle over many years by legislators in the name of African American history.

Citing Ferguson, Missouri, and 
Charlotte, North Carolina, and other cities where black men have been shot and killed by police, Obama said that the story the museum tells is "central to our American story" and "perhaps needs to be told now more than ever.”  

“We should not be surprised that not all the healing is done. We shouldn’t despair that it’s not all solved, and knowing the larger story should remind us just how remarkable the changes that have taken place truly are.”

The three-story, 
$540m building houses artifacts from the slavery era and the Middle Passage, the civil war, Jim Crow segregation, integration and the advent of Obama as the first black president. More...

Afro Supa Hero - a new exhibition

16/5/2016

 
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​Afro Supa® Hero is a new exhibition at the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool celebrating the importance of role models and icons. It provides a snapshot of Jon Daniel’s personal journey of self discovery, through his collection of pop cultural heroes and heroines of the African diaspora. Entry is free and the exhibition in running until December 11.

Jon Daniels grew up in South West London in the 1960s and 1970s. Looking back at his childhood he sees himself as a typical British-born, first generation child of West Indian parents – a young boy trying to find his place within a culture he couldn’t always relate to. In his late 20s he began collecting comics, games, action figures and memorabilia featuring positive Black role models of history and fiction, feeling that they most strongly embodied the era of his childhood and his search for identity. 

Who is your hero? Is she strong? Is he kind? Are they brave? A hero can do and be many amazing things, even without super powers. This exhibition highlights the importance of Black heroes and role models within society and their ability to have a positive impact on the lives and aspirations of us all. More...

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