History of the Slave Trade
05 March 2007
Roscoe Lecture, 5pm Wednesday 7 March
As the UK celebrates the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, LJMU will host a lecture by Adam Hochschild, acclaimed author of Bury the Chains, which traces the movement to end Slavery in the British Empire.
Professor Hochschild will deliver a Roscoe Lecture entitled 'History of the Slave Trade' on Wednesday 7 March 2007, starting at 5pm in the Adelphi Hotel.
There are still a few tickets remaining for this Lecture. To reserve yours, please contact Barbara Mace, ext 3852, b.mace@ljmu.ac.uk
During his lecture, Professor Hochschild will show how a small group of committed citizens managed to change the world thanks to their campaign to abolish the slave trade.
Writing in Mother Jones, the most widely read progressive publication in the United States, which he co-founded in the 1970s, Professor Hochschild said:
"Though born in the age of swords, wigs and stagecoaches, the British anti-slavery movement leaves us an extraordinary legacy. Every day activists use the tools it helped pioneer - consumer boycotts, newsletters, petitions, political posters and buttons, national campaigns with local committees, and much more.
"Far more important is the boldness of its vision. Look at the problems that confront the world today: global warming, the vast gap between rich and poor nations, the habit of war. To solve any one of these, a realist might say, is surely the work of centuries, to think otherwise is naïve.
"But many a hard-headed realist could, and did, say the same thing to those who first proposed to end slavery. Was it not in one form or another woven into the economy of most of the world? Was it not older, even than money and the written word? But the realists turned out to be wrong."
Professor David Alton, who chairs LJMU's Foundation for Citizenship, which hosts the Roscoe Lecture series, added that while it is right to commemorate emancipation, we should also remember that contemporary forms of slavery still persist on a vast scale.
"Over the last 200 years, many human rights campaigns have been modelled on the successful actions of William Roscoe, William Wilberforce, Olaudah Equanio, Thomas Clarkson and other abolitionists.
"What, however, is abundantly clear is that if were merely to indulge in some rather smug self-congratulations, we will have entirely missed the point. As many as 27 million people are still thought to be enslaved today, and slavery and trafficking generate billions of pounds worldwide. Perhaps compared to 1807, slavery tip-toes in carpet slippers but it remains a pernicious and all too real contemporary reality."
Source: LJMU News Update
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