Slavery museum to 'have international presence'

Aug 21 2007 by Liza Williams, Liverpool Daily Post

Museum staff forge international links and freedom icons visit Liverpool, as Liza Williams discovered on her preview tour

LIVERPOOL’S new slavery museum will have a global presence, sending exhibits and curators to tell people in Africa and the Caribbean about lessons the city has learned from history.

The International Slavery Museum at Albert Dock will be opened in the presence of New York social activist and musician Harry Belafonte on Thursday, Slavery Remembrance Day, which marks an uprising of enslaved Africans on the island of St Domingo in 1791.

National Museums Liverpool staff yesterday said they had forged links with museums all over the world and exhibits from their permanent collection will be loaned to many countries affected by the slave trade.

During a preview tour yesterday, Richard Benjamin, head of the International Slavery Museum, said: “We already have connections in the USA and Europe and want to exhibit all over the world – it would be very exciting to do so.

“We are currently creating new partnerships with museums in Africa and the Caribbean.

“I want our curators to visit these places and help set up exhibitions there – the more people see it, the bigger the impact.”

The museum includes many interactive exhibits designed to educate both children and adults about the city’s involvement in the slave trade, and is one of the few in the world to deal with transatlantic slavery and its legacies.

Its opening on the third floor of Liverpool’s Maritime Museum will also mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade.

Initially, the visitors to the museum will be shown an Africa unaffected by European invasion, using a life-size recreation of a Nigerian Igbo compound and the art and culture of the tribe.

This is contrasted with a brutal and harrowing audio visual representation of the middle passage – the journey of slave trading ships from the west coast of Africa across the Atlantic to America.

Details of many other aspects of the trade are shown using interactive pieces, from paintings to recreations of plantations and information on how slaves were treated on a daily basis.

Liverpool’s role within the slave trade is also extensively covered, looking at how Britain perceived the trade and how instrumental it was within it.

The museum also holds a disturbing Ku Klux Klan robe, originating from New York in the 1920’s.

Dr Benjamin said: “The most chilling thing about this robe is it is hand made.

“It was donated to us by an American man living in Britain. He had been given it by a relative and did not know what to do. He was even scared to throw it away. It proves racism was not just confined to the southern states.”

The tone of the museum then moves on to show the legacy of black African people in countries affected by the slave trade.

There is a wall dedicated to 76 black achievers, with inspirational figures ranging from Kofi Annan to Oprah Winfrey on display. Other figures will be added to the wall year by year.

And an interactive music desk charts the origins of today’s sounds from the transatlantic slave trade.

Dr Benjamin hopes the museum will change people’s pre conceived ideas about slavery. He said: “It is important to try and convey the brutality of the slave trade but also to represent the positive legacy ancestors have had in countries like the USA and Britain.

“We believe the museum will fight racism and challenge stereotypical views. We also highlight that African people were not passive, they resisted.”

Since 1994, the maritime museum has had a Transatlantic Slavery Gallery and curators hope the museum builds on and moves forward from this.

Dr Benjamin added: “The museum has moved on. It is now 2007 and we listened to what people wanted. It is especially important that children learn from this museum and the use of multi-media we hope will help do this.”

The museum also includes a learning facility dedicated to murdered Huyton teenager Anthony Walker and news coverage of the crime to illustrate slavery’s legacy of racism.

The museum will enable schools, colleges and communities to take part in workshops and other programmes.

Anthony’s mother, Gee Walker, said: “I’m grateful that the museum has decided to name one of its learning centres after Anthony.

“He would be incredibly proud.

“It’s essential that we learn from the past in order to build a better and more harmonious future.”

A sculpture has also been created, commissioned by National Museums Liverpool and Christian Aid.

The Haitian Freedom! sculpture is of huge significance, because Haiti became the first independent black republic in 1804.

Made out of recycled objects such as car parts and junk found in slums of the capital, Port-au-Prince, it was created by Haitian artists Eugene, Celeur, Guyodo and Mario Benjamin in collaboration with youth groups. Plans for a second phase of the museum are now under way, which is scheduled to pen in 2010, housed in the historic Dock Traffic Office, close to the Liverpool Maritime Museum.

The research and resource centre will offer visitors the opportunity to delve deeper into the issues encountered in the gallery. It will include exhibition space, an archive, a learning suite and facilities for researchers, scholars and the public.

The area will house temporary exhibitions, hold debates and theatrical and musical events.

lizawilliams