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Extract from the Act of Abolition 1807 (Parliamentary Archives).png

Remembering Slavery: A Musical Journey

Remembering Slavery: A Musical Journey was a performance at Luton's summer festival in July 2007. Young people told the story of slavery through music from Africa to the Caribbean to South America.

2007 Adventures of Ottobah Cugoano.pdf

The Adventures of Ottobah Cugoano

The Adventures of Ottobah Cugoano is a book written for young readers, written by Marcia Hutchinson and Pete Tidy, and published by Primary Colours as part of the Freedom and Culture 2007 initiative. Ottobah Cugoanao was an African abolitionist, captured in 1770 in Fante (present-day Ghana) and sold into slavery. He was eventually made free and baptized John Stuart in London. Stuart became active in Sons in Africa and through his publications campaigned for abolition. A Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 Teaching Pack was produced to accompany the adventure story, written by Marcia Hutchinson, Pete Tidy and Shazia Azhar, with a foreword by David Lammy MP.

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From Slave Trade to Fair Trade

The Cowper and Newton Museum is located in Olney, Buckinghamshire, in the building that was once the home of the 18th century poet William Cowper. The Reverend John Newton - formerly master of a slave ship - was Cowper's great friend, and wrote the abolitionist hymn 'Amazing Grace' in collaboration with Cowper whilst living in Olney. The museum's exhibition From Slave Trade to Fair Trade involved a reinterpretation of the museum's collections relating to slavery and abolition. The wider project also included a number of events and community engagement activities, in partnership with Milton Keynes Local Authority, Global Education Milton Keynes (GEMK), the charity World Vision and Culture Milton Keynes. Local black and minority ethnic groups worked with the museum on performances of poetry and readings associated with slavery. A touring display about John Newton and the transatlantic slave trade was shown in various schools, libraries and other locations in Milton Keynes throughout 2007. In April that year, the museum commemorated the bicentenary of the Abolition Act and the death of John Newton with a weekend of talks, tours, church services and a concert from the Todd Murray Group choir.

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The Equiano Project Culture Clubs

Part of the Equiano Project led by Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, the Culture Clubs were a series of outreach projects enabling contributions by local schools and community groups to the way Equiano’s story is told and the issues surrounding how his experience is represented. The four groups - Techno Elders, Hockley Youth Project, Deansfield Secondary School and King George V Primary School - worked closely with the project teams and professional artists to produce work based upon Equiano’s life story. Their work featured within the Gas Hall and Soho House exhibitions.

The Hockley Youth Project’s work was displayed in the ‘Unshackled’ exhibition at Soho House in Birmingham, once home of the industrialist Matthew Boulton. Working with visual artist Nicola Richardson, the group produced a series of suits and artworks which explore themes around Equiano’s life, particularly his success as a businessman and entrepreneur.

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Hidden Histories

This project worked with young people from Lambeth, South London, to examine the history of West Africa, its peoples and their rich heritage, culture and traditions, as well as the impact of slavery and the African diaspora. Using film production, creative workshops, and visits to heritage sites, the emphasis was on the positive impact of African history and its effect on the aspirations and self-esteem of young people.

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Black Man Don't Float?

Black Man Don't Float? is a play developed by Sameboat Project, a not-for-profit organisation working in collaboration with the Pierian Centre Bristol, Gecko Theatre Ipswich, and the Arrow Project at University College Plymouth. Set in the ocean off West Africa, a white yachtsman collides with an African economic migrant who is trying to reach the Canaries in a home-made vessel. They have to co-operate to survive, but their differences lead to confusion. Performed by West African performer Ayodele Scott and UK-based writer and performer Martin Hubbard, Black Man Don't Float? was shown in the UK and then travelled to Sierra Leone. The show was accompanied by a workshop entitled Fair Share, exploring issues around the fair sharing of resources, and the challenges facing developed and developing nations in their negotiations about aid, trade and the exploitation of natural resources.

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A Journey in History: Slavery and Its Abolition

A Journey In History: Slavery And Its Abolition was an exhibition presented by Watford African Caribbean Society to mark the bicentenary of the Abolition Act. The exhibition was launched at Watford Museum's Space2 gallery in 2007. Photographs of the launch are available on Watford Museum's website.

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George Bridgetower: Art, Liberty and Slavery 1807

In this website and Key Stage 3 Resource Pack, the City of London Festival examined the work of the Afro-European violinist George Bridgetower (1778-1860) and, in particular, his relationship with the composer Ludwig van Beethoven. The resource also explored the role of other artists, writers and musicians who were active at the same time as Bridgetower, with a special focus on their relationships to the anti-slavery movement. The website provided music, video clips and worksheets, alongside an interview with Julian Joseph, composer of the jazz opera Bridgetower - A Fable of 1807, toured by English Touring Opera. The resource was part of a broader education project developed by City of London Festival, which included the exhibition, 1807: The Life and Times of George Polgreen Bridgetower, held in the walkways of London's Tower Bridge. The education project also included storytelling, music and creative writing workshops in secondary schools.

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Voices...

A collaborative project between Arts Centre Washington's Youth Theatre and Washington Music Collective, providing development of live music activities for young people within Washington and the surrounding areas. The project involved improvisation, creative writing, music and drama workshops for young people during school holidays, and culminated in a thirty minute play around the themes of slavery. A DVD was produced featuring musical shorts and video diaries of the young actors' experiences. One theme covered was the limbo dance, originating in Trinidad and Tobago, and with symbolic links to enslaved people entering the galleys of a slave ship.

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Living Memory Lab

The Living Memory Lab was a two-year project in which people from local communities of Plymouth made three-minute films on the subjects of slavery and abolition and local connections to the slave trade. A series of short training courses in basic film-making were offered as part of the project. The project was a partnership between Plymouth and District Racial Equality Council, BBC South West, the community arts agency Creative Partnerships, in collaboration with Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery. The DVD was made freely available for use as a teaching aid and community resource.

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A North East Story: Scotland, Africa and Slavery in the Caribbean

This online exhibition and learning resource linking the history of transatlantic slavery to North East Scotland was organised by an Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire Bicentenary Committee, including representatives from Aberdeenshire Council, Aberdeen City Council, the University of Aberdeen, the Robert Gordon University and the African and African-Caribbean communities. It followed on from a service of commemoration and a series of public lectures sponsored by the Committee in 2007. The exhibition logo is inspired by the mythical Sankofa bird, a cultural symbol of the Akan-speaking peoples of Ghana in West Africa. Featured here are a number of resources available to download from the North East Story website.

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Slave Ship and Land

Two plays, Slave Ship by Amiri Baraka and Land by Edson Burton, were presented in Bristol by Say It Loud, a multicultural arts development organisation. Slave Ship was first performed in the United States in 1967. Land was written especially for the bicentenary project. In conjunction with the project, Say It Loud organised drama workshops on the subject of slavery in Bristol schools.

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Breaking Chains - Sheffield Civil Rights

Breaking Chains - Sheffield Civil Rights was a project by Sheffield Galleries and Museum Trust to look at the slave trade and to celebrate Sheffield’s heritage by exploring the role local campaigners played in securing workers' rights. The resources targeted Key Stage 2 pupils. There was a particular focus on the visit to Sheffield by the African abolitionist Olaudah Equiano in 1790. Actor Joe Williams played Equiano in a dramatisation still available to view on the teaching resource. Featured here are some of the downloads available.

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Lascelles Slavery Archive

The Lascelles Slavery Archive was a collaborative project between the Borthwick Institute for Archives and Harewood House Trust to conserve, preserve and make available records relating to slavery from the archives of the Lascelles family of Harewood House, Yorkshire. The project deals with a new discovery of papers relating to the family's fortune based on its estates in the West Indies. Key documents providing evidence for the acquisition of the family's wealth, once thought lost, were found in poor condition during an inventory of Harewood House. The Lascelles Slavery Archive is available through the Borthwick's searchrooms as an online resource, and represents an important section of the larger archive of the Lascelles family held by West Yorkshire Archive Service.

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Carnival Messiah at Harewood

2007 saw a number of different projects taking place at Harewood House in West Yorkshire, home of the Lascelles family. The bicentenary was used as an opportunity to explore the family connections with the transatlantic slave trade and the sugar plantations of the West Indies.

To spotlight Harewood House's historic links with the Caribbean and carnival, in September 2007 a production of Carnival Messiah was held in a Big Top in the grounds. Carnival Messiah is a reinvention of George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Messiah as carnival theatre and heritage experience. The West Indian celebration features dancers, singers, masqueraders, musicians and actors. Stories from the Caribbean folk tradition, medieval mystery plays and African ritual combine with contemporary popular music and dance styles, including gospel, calypso, reggae, jazz, hop hop, bhangra and steel band. Geraldine Connor was Creator and Artistic Director and David Lascelles of Harewood House was Executive Producer. A community education and outreach programme ran alongside the project.

2007 RGS Bombay Africans Part 1.pdf

Bombay Africans

Bombay Africans 1850-1910 was exhibited at the Royal Geographical Society as part of the wider ‘Crossing Continents: Connecting Communities’ project, which with community partners aimed to develop new resources to advance the importance of geography. Based on the research of Clifford Pereira and with community consultation partners, Bombay Africans explored the histories of a group of African men who assisted British explorers such as John Hanning Speke, Richard Burton and David Livingstone on mapping expeditions in East Africa in the late 19th century. The name 'Bombay Africans' was given to Africans who had been rescued from the slave ships operating in the Indian Ocean. The exhibition examined the roles of these men in the anti-slavery movement and in Christian organisations like the Church Missionary Society. Focusing on the East Coast of Africa and the slave trade routes in the Indian Ocean, the exhibition also explored enslavement, forced migration, liberation and the African diaspora in the Asian subcontinent.

2007 Video ART Postcards Teachers Guide.pdf

Video ART Postcards

To mark the bicentenary, Manifesta (a not for profit company delivering projects addressing cultural diversity) and the Runnymede Trust (an independent policy research organisation focusing on equality and justice) joined forces to launch a youth and digital media initiative, Video ART (Anti-Racist Trails) Postcards. The project explored connections between slavery, colonialism and contemporary issues of racism and related injustice. In the summer of 2007, two groups of teenagers aged 14-19 from the London Borough of Newham participated in workshops to uncover sites related to historical racism and anti-racism in the West India Docks area of London, assisted by video artists and historians. Using video for self-expression, each participant interpreted this history and heritage by producing a short personal video or 'postcard' - there were 33 videos in total. The videos were made available on an online resource, and a Teacher's Guide was created to be used alongside the website.

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The Freedom Sculpture

The Freedom Sculpture was conceived by Mary Thompson, a teacher at Dog Kennel Hill Primary School in East Dulwich, as a way for the school to mark the bicentenary. Year 6 pupils worked with Kevin Boys, a blacksmith from Surrey Docks City Farm, to translate their ideas of freedom into a visual image. A butterfly was chosen to represent the concept of freedom. Kevin Boys made the butterfly's wings on a mobile forge in the school playground, and Year 5 children designed patterns to place inside. The Freedom Sculpture was opened in the school grounds in November 2008 by Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty, the civil liberties advocacy group.

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Drivers for Change: Young People Leading the Way

Drivers for Change was a project led by LifeLine Network, a network of partnerships between community organisations and NGOs with a common aim to fight poverty. In Summer 2007, a team of young people visited Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and Dominica to explore the ways in which people were combating modern slavery. The trip was inspired by two significant points in history: the 1807 Abolition Act, and the half way point of the Millennium Development Goals, for which 189 nations signed up to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty. While in Africa, the group looked at how global partnerships between individuals bring communities together, and assist in countering the impact of poverty and HIV/AIDS. A film was produced documenting the trip, launched at an event was held at the Palace of Westminster.

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Blue Earth 1807-2007

The sculpture Blue Earth 1807-2007 by African artist Taslim Martin was permanently installed in the newly updated African Worlds Gallery at the Horniman Museum in 2007, to mark the bicentenary. The large iron globe, inscribed with the 18th century image of the slave ship Brookes, traces the routes along which enslaved Africans were transported to the New World, alongside the movement of the products of enslaved labour. The major British ports of Liverpool, London and Bristol are depicted, as well as ports in West Africa and some of the destination ports in North America, the Caribbean and South America. Visitors are encouraged to spin the globe to view slave routes across the world. In 2007-2008, the Horniman Museum also hosted 'La Bouche du Roi' by Romuald Hazoumé.