African Remembrance Day (ARD) centres around remembrance of the suffering and experiences of millions of African men, women and children who perished in the Middle Passage and plantations economies in the New World.

It also provides an opportunity to reflect on the journey of their descendants in the fight for justice and equality. It is thus a day for reflection, healing and renewal of the global African family.

The height of the ceremony is 3 minutes silence at 3.00 PM – a minute each for the victims in the Americas, the African continent and the Middle and Far East.

The theme of this year’s ARD, ‘UCL’s Legacies of British Slave-Ownership Archive’, and ‘Returning African Artefacts, Icons and Human Remains’ builds on the momentum created by Black Lives Matter in the struggle against the structural racism that is a continuing legacy of slavery and colonialism.

Areas for discussion:

• How was Britain enriched by slavery?
• Why does this matter today?
• What options exist for repair and restitution?

These issues will be addressed by keynote speakers Prof. Matthew J. Smith, the newly appointed Director of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-Ownership at UCL, and Prof. Patricia Daley, Professor of Human Geography of Africa at Oxford University.

Matthew Smith is Professor of Caribbean History and joined UCL after many years working as a historian of the Caribbean at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica. His research is pan-Caribbean in scope with special interest in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century histories of Haiti and Jamaica.

Patricia Daley is Professor of the Human Geography of Africa and an Official Fellow and Geography Tutor at Jesus College, Oxford. Her previous academic appointments were at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, Loughborough University and Pembroke College, Oxford. She has taught a range of human geography topics, as well as specialist courses on African societies and environments.

Carroll Thompson, the Queen of Lovers Rock, will end the programme with a rendition of Redemption Song, Bob Marley’s hymn to survival and freedom.

Opening prayers will be provided by Ifa disciple and musicians Olalekan Babalola.

ARD thanks AFFORD for their support and partnership

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