Dealing with the legacy of the slave trade

Wednesday 20th June saw 15 adults and children in teeshirts emblazoned with the words 'So Sorry' marching briskly down the quiet and pretty canals between Wedgewood in Trentham and the town of Stoke.

It was a beautiful day and as many enjoyed their holiday slowly ambling along the canals in flower laden boats, in stark contrast the haunting and controversial image was seen of 5 people tied together in chains, with two at the front also wearing wooden yokes around their necks.

As they marched down the canal you could hear a drum beating long before you saw them round the corner. Yet as this company of white people in chains, a man from Cameroon in the front carrying a stick with a snake on and another at the back beating a drum marched on I was left wondering what the residents of these sleepy middle class areas would make of it. I didn't have to wait long for my question to be answered, as I saw one lady from Trentham observe this unlikely group with only a mild curiosity and unmoved from the focus of her day show only a slight interest in their cause.

Their destination today is the civic centre for an audience and welcome with the Lord Mayor and local church leaders followed by an act of remembrance at the grave of Josiah Wedgewood (a great pioneer of the abolition movement), in the grounds of St. Peter's Minster.

This is the March of the Abolitionists, a national project for the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade seeing a 200-mile Meridian Walk from Hull to Westminster and the Sankofa Walk which will link London, Bristol and Liverpool in a triangle to symbolise the triangular slave trade. This is also the conclusion of an epic seven year journey by David Potts and his organisation the Lifeline Expedition.

The first Lifeline Expedition journey was the Jubilee 2000 Lifeline Walk in England. During the course of that journey, it became evident that the major reconciliation issue between Europe and Africa, was that of the legacy of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The years since then have seen them before Prime Ministers and in countries such as Spain and France, the USA, the Caribbean and West Africa, bringing apology, providing a safe place for dialogue, educating about the true history of slavery and raising funds for projects in Africa.

From 1441 to 1888, the Trans-Atlantic slave trade created an African Diaspora in the forced migration of some 11-12 million people from many diverse societies and cultures in west and west central Africa to European colonies in the Caribbean Islands, in Central and South America, and in North America.

David Potts is someone who doesn't let sleeping dogs lie though! He is a brave man who is calling for British cities to formally follow Liverpool's lead and publicly acknowledge and apologise for the roles they played in the slave trade.

On 9 December 1999 Liverpool City Council passed a formal motion apologising for the City's part in the slave trade. It was unanimously agreed that Liverpool acknowledged its responsibility for its involvement in three centuries of the slave trade and the City Council made an unreserved apology for Liverpool's involvement and the continual effect of slavery on Liverpool's black communities.

David Potts

David has delivered this apology statement for the slave trade to other city halls in other countries and has since seen Maryland and Virginia in the USA issue similar apologies. He believes that what they did was a contribution towards that eventually happening.

Encouragingly he says "Lancaster has been considering an apology cause it was the 4th largest slave port after Liverpool, Bristol and London. I was talking with a newspaper doing an interview and suggesting ways they could make a meaningful apology of substance so something may happen of our visit there next week. What I've said is an apology of substance would mean that Lancaster would twin not with a nice city in America or Germany but would twin with the town in Africa that it sent most slave ships to."

David continued, "Our focus at Lifeline is to think about the past and how do we respond to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and to the legacies? The thing that's more controversial and people are not so sure about is remembering that there are legacies of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and what do you do about those legacies, the poverty in Africa and the way that descendants of enslaved Africans in particular are disadvantaged both in the Caribbean and also in many cities in the US and Europe.

"Reparations are repairing damage and I think it's important to repair damage that we see and was created by our forebears. It does involve something in the area of economics, but it's firstly to do with relationships. We repair the damage together through relationship. Sometimes we've knelt down in yokes and chains in front of descendants of enslaved Africans and said what do you want us to do? And the commonest thing that people say is education. Please could you let people know how awful the slave trade was for us and give people the true facts educating them so there won't be this kind of prejudice and racism in the future. And so we've majored on education and this morning we were in two Stafford schools showing a DVD and explaining what we do so what we do is an apology of substance, not just words, but doing what we've been asked to do."