[Previous entry: "U.S. Missionaries Leave Venezuela Outposts"] [Next entry: "Republicans brand Katrina response a national failure"]

02/14/2006:

"Powerful lobbying by black communities led to Church of England slavery apology and the fight for reparations will continue, say activists"

Mainstream press left out the role played by black communities

"They are focusing on how many slaves the Church owned, what properties the Church owned and how many slaves it owned, reducing the role of Christianity in the chattel enslavement of Africans
Dr William Lez Henry, Sociologist and Cultural Historian"

Reports last week in the mainstream press made quite a meal of the Church of England (C of E) apology over its participation in what Europeans refer to as ‘The Transatlantic Slave Trade.’

Using emotional quotes from Archbishop Rowan Williams referring to “the shame and the sinfulness of our predecessors” and its “repentance and apology” not being “words alone”; once again the British establishment has tried to claim the moral high ground on the issue of ‘The African Holocaust.’

Nowhere in any of the news reports the mainstream media offered up was there any mention of the involvement of reparations movements, campaign groups and church leaders from the black communities.

Black Britain learnt from Kofi Mawuli Klu, joint co-ordinator of Rendezvous of Victory (ROV) an anti-slavery, African led abolitionist heritage organisation, of the events that led to the C of E’s apology.

He explained that after the ROV’s People’s University of Lifelong Learning launch in 2004, (the year that the United Nations designated as the International Year for the Commemoration of the Struggle against Slavery) supported by Home Office Minister Fiona Mc Taggart; the C of E invited ROV to be part of a working group for its 2007 project.

Mawuli Klu then became part of the Executive of the Working Committee established by representatives of church groups. Anti-Slavery International (ASI) was also brought on board. He told black Britain:

“ROV was there as an African led community organisation so that the views of black communities could be fed into the discussions and debates.”

According to Mawuli Klu, the first meetings revealed that: “The only people the Church of England seemed to know about were: William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, John Newton and all the white abolitionists.”
blackbritain.co.uk