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The International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition is an international day celebrated August 23 of each year, the day designated by UNESCO to memorialize the transatlantic slave trade.
That date was chosen by the adoption of resolution 29 C/40 by the Organization's General Conference at its 29th session. Circular CL/3494 of July 29, 1998, from the Director-General invited Ministers of Culture to promote the day. [1] The date is significant because, during the night of August 22 to August 23, 1791, on the island of Saint Domingue (now known as Haiti), an uprising began which set forth events which were a major factor in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.
UNESCO Member States organize events every year on that date, inviting participation from young people, educators, artists and intellectuals. As part of the goals of the intercultural UNESCO project, "The Slave Route", it is an opportunity for collective recognition and focus on the "historic causes, the methods and the consequences" of slavery. Additionally, it sets the stage for analysis and dialogue of the interactions which gave rise to the transatlantic trade in human beings between Africa, Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean. [2]
The International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition was first celebrated in a number of countries, in particular in Haiti on August 23, 1998, and Senegal on August 23, 1999. A number of cultural events and debates were organized.
In 2001 the Museum of Printed Textiles (Musée de l'impression sur étoffes) in Mulhouse, France, conducted a fabric workshop entitled "Indiennes de Traite" (a type of calico) used as currency in trade for Africans.
National Museums Liverpool and the black community in Liverpool have held events to commemorate Slavery Remembrance Day since 1999. [3] The Liverpool Slavery Remembrance Initiative – a partnership between National Museums Liverpool, individuals from the Liverpool Black community, Liverpool City Council, Liverpool Culture Company and The Mersey Partnership – was founded in 2006 to lead on the organisation of the event. The International Slavery Museum in Liverpool opened its doors on August 23, 2007. The Walk of Remembrance through the city began in 2011, which has been led by Dr Gee Walker since 2013. [4] The route passes the site of Old Dock where slave ships were moored and been repaired, and finishes at the Dr Martin Luther King Jr Building where it is closed by a Libation ceremony at Albert Dock. [5]
The inaugural Slavery Remembrance National Memorial Service will be held on 21 August 2016 in Trafalgar Square. [6] The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich hosts an annual commemoration event on 23 August which closes with a silent ceremony on the banks of the river Thames. [7]
Other comparable international observances include:
and:
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, was the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of various enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, and existed from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The vast majority of those who were enslaved and transported in the transatlantic slave trade were people from Central and West Africa, who had been sold by other West Africans to Western European slave traders ; Europeans gathered and imprisoned the enslaved at forts on the African coast and then brought them to the Americas. Except for the Portuguese, European slave traders generally did not participate in the raids because life expectancy for Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa was less than one year during the period of the slave trade. The South Atlantic and Caribbean economies were particularly dependent on labour for the production of sugarcane and other commodities. This was viewed as crucial by those Western European states which, in the late 17th and 18th centuries, were vying with one another to create overseas empires.
Emancipation Day is observed in many former European colonies in the Caribbean and areas of the United States on various dates to commemorate the emancipation of slaves of African descent.
A Holocaust memorial day or Holocaust remembrance day is an annual observance to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, the genocide of six million European Jews by Nazi Germany. Many countries, primarily in Europe, have designated national dates of commemoration. In 2005, the United Nations instituted an international observance, International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 provided for the immediate abolishment of slavery in most parts of the British Empire. This Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom expanded the jurisdiction of the Slave Trade Act 1807 and made the purchase or ownership of slaves illegal within the British Empire, with the exception of "the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company", Ceylon, and Saint Helena. The Act was repealed in 1997 as a part of wider rationalisation of English statute law; however, later anti-slavery legislation remains in force.
Sylviane Anna Diouf is a historian and curator of the African diaspora. She is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, Brown University and a member of the Scientific Committee of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience. Her contribution as a social historian, she stressed, "may be the uncovering of essential stories and topics that were overlooked or negated, but which actually offer new insights into the experience of the African Diaspora. A scholar said my work re-shapes and re-directs our understanding of this history; it shifts our attention, corrects the historical record, and reveals hidden and forgotten voices."
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is an international memorial day on 27 January that commemorates the victims of the Holocaust, the genocide of European Jews by Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1945. 27 January was chosen to commemorate the date that Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army in 1945.
The International Slavery Museum is a museum located in Liverpool, England that focuses on the history and legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. The museum which forms part of the Merseyside Maritime Museum, consists of three main galleries which focus on the lives of people in West Africa, their eventual enslavement, and their continued fight for freedom. Additionally the museum discusses slavery in the modern day as well as topics on racism and discrimination.
United Nations Slavery Memorial, officially known as The Permanent Memorial at the United Nations in Honour of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, is an installation at the Headquarters of the United Nations in New York City intended as a permanent reminder of the long-lasting effects of slavery and the slave trade.
The Shackles of Memory Association is a non-profit association registered under the Law on Associations of 1901, whose aim is to bring closer to the general public the history of the slave trade, slavery and their modern consequences, in order to promote new partnerships on a fair and respectful basis, between the societies of Africa, the Americas and Europe.
The Slave Route Project is a UNESCO initiative that was officially launched in 1994 in Ouidah, Benin. It is rooted in the mandate of the organization, which believes that ignorance or concealment of major historical events constitutes an obstacle to mutual understanding, reconciliation and cooperation among peoples. The project breaks the silence surrounding the slave trade and slavery that has affected all continents and caused great upheavals that have shaped our modern societies. In studying the causes, the modalities and the consequences of slavery and the slave trade, the project seeks to enhance the understanding of diverse histories and heritages stemming from this global tragedy.
Reparations for slavery is the application of the concept of reparations to victims of slavery and/or their descendants. There are concepts for reparations in legal philosophy and reparations in transitional justice. Throughout history reparations for slavery have been both given by legal ruling in court and/or given voluntarily by individuals and institutions. Reparations can take numerous forms, including: individual monetary payments, settlements, scholarships, waiving of fees, and systemic initiatives to offset injustices, land-based compensation related to independence, apologies and acknowledgements of the injustices, token measures, such as naming a building after someone, or the removal of monuments and renaming of streets that honor slave owners and defenders of slavery.
The United Nations General Assembly declared the year 2011 as International Year for People of African Descent. That year also marked the 10th anniversary of the World Conference Against Racism, which approved a resolution stating that slavery along with the colonization that sustained it were crimes against humanity.
International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade is a United Nations international observance designated in 2007 to be marked on 25 March every year.
The International Decade for People of African Descent, 2015–2024, was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in a Resolution (68/237) adopted on 23 December 2013. The theme of the International Decade is "People of African descent: recognition, justice and development".
In May 2016, President Francois Hollande announced the formation of a foundation to erect a national slavery and Atlantic slave trade memorial and museum in Paris, France. Identifying the memorial and museum's purpose, Hollande said, “I wish to give to France an institution it still lacks, a foundation for the memory of the slave trade, slavery and its abolition”.
Rodney Leon is an American architect. He is the founder of Rodney Leon Architect. He is the designer of the monument "The Ark of Return", and the memorial for the New York City African Burial Ground National Monument. He specializes in urban planning projects in the United States of America, and abroad, projects with cultural, residential, and religious. He is a member of The Haitian Roundtable (HRT). It is an organization of the Haitian-American professionals committed to civic engagement as well as philanthropic endeavors to benefit Haiti. It was started in 2008.
The Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery is a memorial on the Quai de la Fosse in Nantes, France. The site memorializes the victims of Nantes' active role in the slave trade. The memorial, the largest such site in the world, was dedicated on March 25, 2012.
Liverpool, a port city in north-west England, was involved in the transatlantic slave trade. The trade developed in the eighteenth century, as Liverpool slave traders were able to supply fabric from Manchester to the Caribbean islands at very competitive prices.