Dr. Sasha Turner, Associate Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, gave this year’s keynote speech at the Mayor of London’s seventh annual ceremony to mark the UNESCO Day for Remembering The Transatlantic Slave Trade and its Abolition.
The ceremony took place on Friday 23 August, with the theme ‘Black Liberation: Our Journey to Repair’.
Coming together to share and remember this history was a distinguished audience:
- borough mayors
- professors in the field
- high commissioners
- MPs
- councillors
- Assembly members
- representatives from across museums and community groups
- community leaders
- historians
- activists, who have spent their lives campaigning for these stories to be told.
Professor Turner spoke on the subject of ‘Abolition from the Perspective of Enslaved Women and their Community’:
What’s the abolition of slavery got to do with Black women’s wombs? More than you might imagine...
'“Amelioration” was a policy of sugar plantation management that sought to soften the harshest conditions of slavery – mainly for women, especially in the late pre-natal and early post-natal situation'.
‘The short-term objective was to encourage pregnancy and to facilitate safe delivery and survival of the new-born—which in fact, was a Caribbean version of American “Slave-breeding”.
'The original long-term objective was to increase the enslaved population by natural means, in order to reduce the costs of production against the constantly rising costs of new imports of captive Africans. From the 1770s, “amelioration” became increasingly associated with prospects of Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.'
Dr Sasha Turner speaking at UNESCO Day 2024
London played a central role in transatlantic slavery. Yet there is little to honour the sacrifices, contributions, lives and descendants of those enslaved during the transatlantic slave trade. London holds other histories too, for example:
- Black Liberation movements
- struggles to end the enslavement of Africans
- stories of Free People of Colour, who made lives and livelihoods for themselves, despite the odds being very much stacked against them.
The most detailed study to date of Black Women’s fight for freedom from “Ameliorated” Slavery is in Contested Bodies: Pregnancy, Childrearing, and Slavery in Jamaica, by keynote speaker, Professor Sasha Turner – a scholar whose research is urgent and necessary for any activist today.
There are lots of brilliant groups and individuals working to share these histories more widely. The Young Historians Project, the Tower Hamlets Communities of Liberation project, the Equiano Society, The Black Mary Project, and Black History Walks to name a few.
Watch the 2024 ceremony
The ceremony takes place on 23 August each year, and the programme this year included:
- Drumming intro – One Drum, including the renowned Abass Dodoo
- Libation – Edo Cultural Troupe UK
- Hosts’ welcome - Priscellia 'Pyhia' Robinson and Dr Nathaniel Adam Tobias
- UNESCO (France) address – Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO
- London Assembly address – Andrew Boff AM, Chair of the London Assembly
- Poetry – Rasheeda Page-Muir
- United Nations (New York) address – Dr Patricia Da Silva , United Nations Population Fund Initiative on People of African Descent
- Mayoral address – Dr Debbie Weekes-Bernard, Deputy Mayor for Communities and Social Justice
- Soliloquy – Prince Kundai, performing ‘The rebellion plot of 1824’, taken from ‘Contested Bodies, Pregnancy, Childrearing, and Slavery in Jamaica’, by Dr. Sasha Turner
- Keynote address – Dr. Sasha Turner, Associate Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University (livestream timecode is 1:33.18)
Affirmations delivered by:
- Arthur Torrington CBE, Chair of the Community Advisory Group
- Jaiden John Shaw, London Youth Assembly
- Natasha Trotman, Community Advisory Group
- Zerritha Brown, Community Advisory Group
- Jemima-Helen Tshondo, London Youth Assembly
- Lucy Isaiah, Community Advisory Group
- Stephen Akinbisola, Community Advisory Group
Memorial to victims of transatlantic slavery
On the morning of the ceremony, The Wake by Khaleb Brooks was announced as the selected artwork for the Memorial to Victims of Transatlantic Slavery.
The new memorial is the first of its scale and profile in the UK. And will be in West India Quay in London Docklands – an area whose history is closely linked with transatlantic slavery.
Inspired by the shape of a cowrie shell, The Wake represents the perseverance, prosperity and beauty rooted in Africa and African diasporic heritage.
Cowrie shells hold cultural and spiritual significance. But became a stark symbol of slavery and the exploitation of human life as currency in the trade of enslaved people.
In March 2023, the Mayor of London committed £500,000 to develop a memorial initiative.
The memorial will include a permanent artwork, satellite sites, and a learning and engagement programme.