Last week Dr Robert Beckford and MJR trustee Paul Keeble spoke to Chick Yuill on Premier Radio about the work of MJR and the new feature documentary, ‘After the Flood: the church, slavery and reconciliation'. The film, which will be premiered in London on 25th May 2022, tells how the 18th century Church became embroiled in the slave trade and encourages us to face the truth and deal with the ongoing legacy of slavery.

“Most Christians don’t know about the history of slavery because it represents one of the biggest cover ups in the history of the church in Britain. What we hope the film will do is enable people to understand this history, and to meaningfully, in an educated way, become part of the solution.” Dr Robert Beckford.
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Listen to the interview here. Tickets for the Premiere are available here.

The government is planning a secret flight to forcibly remove more than 50 people to Jamaica, the first since 2016. Due to the Windrush Scandal, a planned charter flight to Jamaica last spring was cancelled and charter flights to Jamaica (but not other countries) were suspended. Until now. In addition, many are still facing Windrush-related issues, and neither the results of the Windrush compensation scheme consultation nor the consultation into “lessons learned” have been published. Read more, including details about some the people who are being deported in this article.

The flight is due to leave on February 11th. A protest outside 10 Downing Street is being organised for Thursday February 6th at 6pm. Send an email for more information.

'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.

The University of Glasgow has published a comprehensive report into the institution’s historical links with racial slavery.
The study acknowledges that whilst it played a leading role in the abolitionist movement, the University also received significant financial support from people whose wealth at least in part derived from slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries. Read more here and an opinion piece by Afua Hirsch here. Download the report here. Read about a call for other universities to follow Glasgow's lead

A new Legacy museum has been opened in Montgomery, Alabama by the Equal Justice Initiative. The museum traces the history of enslaved black people in America from the horrors of slavery to the terrors of lynching, the humiliation of Jim Crow and the current crisis of police brutality. Nearby a National Memorial for Peace and Justice, also opened last month, becomes one of the country’s first memorials dedicated to more than 4,000 victims of lynching.

Bryan Stevenson, founder and director of the Equal Justice Initiative, said the country cannot heal until it confronts the truth of what happened, especially in the South.

“This landscape is littered with a kind of glorious story about our ‘romantic past’,” said Stevenson, a lawyer who has helped overturn the convictions of more than 125 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row. “You can’t say that if you fully understand the depravity of human slavery, of bondage, of humiliation and rape and torture and lynchings of people.” Read more in this article. Visit the museum website.

MJR welcomes two announcements from the Labour Party that would mark progress in the recognition and addressing the problem of the legacy of slavery.

​According to this article in Voice, Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn says he wants institutions to “give back” to descendants of slave trade. The donations would fund bursaries for people from British BAME communities which would provide education and training for underrepresented groups in sectors such as finance and banking. 

Plans for a new Slavery Education Trust have also been unveiled by the Labour Party  which will not only educate people about the horrors of slavery through school programmes and trips to historical landmarks but also highlight the resilience of those enslaved and the contribution to the world made by Africa and the Caribbean.

Read the full article here...

Edward Colston died nearly 300 years ago but remains a controversial figure in his home city of Bristol. A generous benefactor to the city, Colston has been unquestioningly venerated for many years, but with little or no mention of the fact that the fortune he donated from was generated by his trading in slaves: a major factor in Bristol's growth as a city. Bristol Council is about to recognise this aspect of his past, but this article on the BBC website asks if it going far enough. The group 'Countering Colston' has long been campaigning for this reconsideration of Colston who has dozens of streets, buildings, institutions and memorials named after him.

Bristol poet laureate Miles Chambers sums up the legacy of enslavement in Bristol: "Some people don't get that black people still feel the full impact of slavery today. We can look at the descendants of the slaves and economically they are still worse off; psychologically they are still worse off; mentally they still feel collectively as inferior; more African-Caribbean males are disproportionately in prison and in the judicial system; they do worse at schools; economically are paid less and are working less.

"The pattern continues and even though many people say slavery is over, because of those legacies we still feel enslaved. A name change or statue move is not going to rectify racism or eradicate the slave mentality that still exists, but it will help to say to black people: 'You are equal to us, you are British, you are valuable and you mean as much to us as any other citizen.'"

Read the full article here.

In 1833 when the slavery was finally ended by Britain £20 million was paid as compensation to slave owners by the  Government. This was 40% of the total budget for that year and the equivalent of £17 billion today. Until the bail-out of the banks in 2008 it was the largest single payment ever made by a British government. Now the Bristol Post has discovered that this compensation was still being paid off by taxpayers in 2015: revealed by the Treasury under a Freedom of Information request. It means that "anyone who paid any tax at all before February 1, 2015 was paying off the debt created from the millions paid to British slave owners in 1833". The slaves received nothing.

The Treasury then trivialised this fact through a tweet which said: "Here’s today’s surprising #FridayFact. Millions of you helped end the slave trade through your taxes.” Several historians queried the tweet's tone and accuracy (the slave trade actually ended in 1807) and it was quickly deleted. Read the full story here.

In this new two-part documentary staring at 10pm tonight on Channel 4, rapper Professor Green explores why many working class white men feel demonised, forgotten and angry. One of the issues he looks into is that of educational failure among children from poor white communities – particularly boys, who get the poorest GCSE results and are the least likely to go to university. This is an issue MJR has investigated as part of our 'Proving Legacy' research. Read more about 'Working Class White Men' and the educational attainment problem in this interview with Professor Green.

A session from Dr Nicholas Draper's recent course 'Remembering Slavery' at the Gladstone Library which looks at the Gladstone family links to the slave trade has been made available as a free audio download here.