On October 12, the Centre for Research in Race and Rights in collaboration with the Department of History and the Institute for the Study of Slavery hosted an event about Britain's forgotten slave owners with historian and broadcaster David Olusoga. C3R co-director and Antislavery Usable Past research fellow Katie Donington and Susanne Seymour from the School of Geography discussed the making of David's documentary Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners, a two-part programme that resulted from a partnership between BBC and the Legacies of British Slave-ownership project at University College London. Katie worked on this project for the past six years, looking at the forgotten history of the slave-owners as a way into thinking about how slavery contributed towards the making of modern Britain.
As the event fell in Black History Month there was a very lively discussion about focusing on slavery during the period. This raised a number of questions: why does slavery dominate narratives of black history? What effect does this have not only in terms of how people understand black history but also in terms of the self-esteem of young people who often only see their heritage represented through the lens of slavery? What would a different narrative look like? Is a purely celebratory narrative useful for Black History Month? What is the role of the historian in representing narratives of Black history and does that differ from the role of other educators, for instance, teachers or museum professionals?
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