Painful legacy of slavery laid bare

The social pressures and events that led up to Parliament’s 1807 Act to abolish the British slave trade, and the brutal system which attempted to dehumanise millions of Africans, is the subject of a new public exhibition at Westminster.

Rommi Smith, a creative writing tutor in the School of Education’s Lifelong Learning Institute since 1999, has been appointed as the first-ever parliamentary writer-inresidence to support the exhibition, which marks the 200th anniversary of the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

A well-known poet, playwright and actor, she has the task of engaging young people with the issues around slavery through drama, poetry, narrative, music and multimedia.

“The impact of Britain’s role in Ma’fa, or the enslavement of Africans, is living and breathing all around us; for me it is very much present, not past tense,” she said.

“There are people of African heritage today who have English surnames, and in many cases that’s a legacy of their enslaved ancestors who were forced to take their‘master’s’ name. In African cultures, your name is quite literally your compass; because it can tell you which tribe you come from, your place in the family line, which part of the country, and the circumstances of your birth.”

As part of her role, she will work closely with students at two inner-city London secondary schools to explore the exhibition’s themes through spoken word, performance and music.

“We’ll be exploring the legacies of the British slave trade; prejudice, racism, and modernday slavery in the form of sweat shops, sex trafficking, and enforced child labour.”

Ms Smith will also create and perform a new poetic sequence for the exhibition that dramatises the voice of fascinating historical figures like Olaudah Equiano, an enslaved African man in the Royal Navy who travelled the world and eventually bought his freedom. Equiano later wrote a bestselling autobiography about his experiences, and actively campaigned for abolition during the 1790s.

An estimated 10 to 28 million Africans were sold into slavery and subjected to beatings, torture, rape or death before the British slave trade was legally abolished, although illegal trading continued and slavery itself remained legal until 1833.

“The fact that as a woman of Nigerian and European heritage I’ll be working in the very building where these acts were passed is very significant when you think about what history the building has witnessed,” said Ms Smith.

The free exhibition, The British Slave Trade: Abolition, Parliament and People, runs until September 23. For details visit http://slavetrade.parliament.uk

Photo 1: Leeds creative writing tutor Rommi Smith has been made the first-ever parliamentary writer-in-residence for an exhibition about the abolition of slavery.