"Slavery 'to blame' for social unrest amongst British African population"

All the social unrest in the British African population can be
attributed to 200 years of slavery, a direct descendent of William
Wilberforce claimed today.

Lady (Kate) Davson, the great-great-great granddaughter of the anti-
slavery campaigner, made the comments at the unveiling by London Mayor
Boris Johnson of a maquette of a planned slavery memorial in the
capital.

She said: "The white population of Great Britain has got to be on its
knees to make things right. The apology should be visible to show we
accept that we effected the most awful wounds on a huge number of
people."

As her husband's ancestors owned sugar estates in Guyana, she said
that they "really have to grovel".

Britain's key role in both implementing and benefiting from the slave
trade meant that the country must lead the way in apologising, she
added.

Mr Johnson, who has claimed to be directly descended from slaves
himself, said it was "vital" never to forget the role Britain played
in slavery, when he unveiled the model of the planned memorial
sculpture at City Hall in London.

He said: "It's vital that our children have a reminder of man's
inhumanity to man."

He is supporting the campaign by voluntary group Memorial 2007 (named
after the bi-centenary of the British parliamentary abolition of the
slave trade), which wants to establish the first permanent national
memorial in Britain to remember enslaved Africans and their
descendants.

The model of the memorial sculpture, which it is hoped will be
installed in the Rose Garden in London's Hyde Park by 2011, shows six
human figures representing different aspects of the slave trade,
standing atop a round plinth.

Sculptor Les Johnson, who created the model after winning a
competition to design the memorial, said: "The important thing was to
understand the brief and what the committee was aiming to commemorate
with this memorial."

The maquette of his design will be exhibited at City Hall from today
until December 1 to mark International Slavery Memorial Day on August
23.

Memorial 2007 said it needed to raise £1.5 million to fund the
installation of the full-sized statue in Hyde Park, and is appealing
for donations. A permanent site in the park, of about 1,080 square
metres, has been negotiated with Government support.

Oku Ekpenyon, a Memorial 2007 organiser, said: "There is a lack of
knowledge and understanding about the history of Africa, the
repercussion of slavery and what it meant for Britain.

"This memorial will be an educational resource as the focus of
curriculum-based and life-long learning.

"It will also serve within a broader context to highlight in a
national and public setting the centrality of the experience of
enslaved Africans and their descendants in the history of Britain.
This in turn will function as a focus for family and local history
researchers."

She said the statue would be the first permanent memorial in any
capital city in the world that was involved in the slave trade.

The Mayor said: "Hyde Park is a fitting site for a permanent memorial
to the millions who lost their lives and the courageous people who
fought to end the brutal transatlantic slave trade."

Boris Johnson said in March that his great-great-grandmother was a
Circassian slave (from a region in southern Russia), sold to his great-
great-grandfather. He claimed that she was only set free when they
married.

However, when the BBC studied Johnson's story for an edition of the
BBC series Who Do You Think You Are? in which celebrities trace their
family trees, it was unable to find proof.

http://www.24dash.com/news/Communities/2008-08-18-Slavery-to-blame-for-soci
al-unrest-amongst-British-African-population

that or TNB.

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