Marian's Blog

Areva's pro-nuke 'cartoon' ad back on TV

I bet you never knew radioactive nuclear power could be this much fun! Wow. French nuclear plant maker Areva - not Aveva - is back, blitzing t.v. screens somewhere near you with a cartoonized "soft" pro-nuclear ad. Caution: If all you notice is the music with that fun beat, you very well may not notice they're trying to sell you on nukes!!! And your kids and friends' kids might not either. I used to see this exact same ad, over and over, on satellite t.v. - in Kenya! Change the channel, even if it's just for the duration of the ad.

Re-connecting Africa with herself: 1619 Angola and Congo to Virginia

Re-connecting Africa with her history and her people means re-connecting Europe (and the Middle East) with its own history, too. "About 350 slaves were bound for Veracruz [Mexico], when the ship was robbed of its human cargo off the coast of Mexico in 1619 by two unidentified pirate ships..." Sandra sent me the link to Lisa Rein's Sunday, 3 September Washington Post article, Mystery of Va.'s First Slaves is Unlocked 400 Years Later. This was no "mystery". The countries who held these records for the past four centuries did not care. In fact, they've been evasive, hostile and secretive about this chapter of their own history. The Africa-Europe-Virginia story of 30 Africans cast ashore at Jamestown in 1619 from a Dutch-flagged ship is part of the larger story of 350 Angolans and Congolese among the tens of millions of Africans deported on ship after ship to the Americas over 300 years. Since then we have been kept apart from Africa. Apartheid. Forced to live apart forever. These Africans lived apart in the Americas, separated to the present day from Africa and each other. They were kept apart even inside every society into which they were shipped like goods. "They passed through a slave fortress at the port city of Luanda, still Angola's capital." ... continued

Kenya: Lucy Yinda's Wema Centre for street children and community orphans

In 14 Million Dreams, Miles Roston's documentary film about Africa's millions of children orphaned by HIV and AIDS, Ms. Lucy Yinda describes how she started the Wema Centre for the rehabilitation of street children and community orphans. I can never forget the children I've seen, in Africa, in the U.S., the Caribbean, South America, the Balkans: children sniffing glue to numb hunger pain, refugee mothers with babies, smiling or anxious dirty-faced children in rags running through traffic at intersections, sometimes carrying a smaller child, begging passing drivers for change. I will never understand how anyone can take advantage of another person in such conditions. Please give Wema Centre your financial, political and spiritual support!

Caribbean heritage: "I met History once but he ain't recognize me"

Recently I read somewhere a scholar's observation that if you want to understand Britain's early colonies in the Americas you cannot make a distinction between life in the British colonial Caribbean and life on the British colonial North American mainland. Charleston, South Carolina's deep connections to St. Catherine's (now St. Kitt's) and Nevis are just one example. The people and their interactions were so totally linked. Part of what our histories and heritages tell me is we have a lot of "re-discovering" to do - not only of each other but of ourselves. I found a few things I like on this site of professor A. Waller Hastings - including Derek Walcott's quote. I feel I know what he's talkin' about:

“I met History once, but he ain’t recognize me” (Derek Walcott, “The Schooner Flight”). And an 1882 quote from British politician Sir John Seeley: "We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind."

A whole history of the things Britain (and France and Holland and Spain and Portugal, etc., etc.) did - not to mention the hard cash they stashed - but of which she now has so little conscious memory. I say this as one of tens of millions of people of colour from the Americas (and elsewhere) with what I'll call "our unclaimed ties to Britain" (i.e., ties Britain thusfar seems to refuse to recognise). So Seeley's quote sounds accurate to me.

Nor is all the Caribbean English-speaking or linked to colonial Britain: "... one of the early revolutionary critiques of colonialism, [was] that of Frantz Fanon, a French writer born in Martinique [part of the Caribbean] and educated to conceive himself as French.  However, his education in France and confrontation with French racism made him aware of the disorientation he experienced as a black man taught to behave “white,” and he responded in part by writing his influential tract, Black Skin, White Masks (1952). ..."

"... Among the first British colonies were those that later formed the United States, and foremost among these was Virginia (est. 1617) [actually it was 1607, with major retrospective activities in 2007] where the cultivation of tobacco, previously unknown in Europe, proved a boon to the British economy. Virginia contributed enormous amounts of revenue to the crown; .... duties on tobacco amounted to £421,000 pounds in the two-year period between 1699 and 1701 - one-fifth of all customs revenue during that period (7). ... Britain also developed economic interests in the West Indies. The first British settlement was in Barbados (est. 1627), which struggled at first until the possibilities of the sugar trade became apparent. The sugar economy led to other West Indian colonies, but the climate of the region made it unattractive to British settlers; even indentured servants and deportees lacked the physical stamina needed, so the slave trade was introduced to provide an appropriate labor force (the local population having already been devastated as a result of being the first point of contact with European civilization). ..." We come from this history that once was whole and now we and it are fragmented. And so it goes. Happy Caribbean American Heritage Month to all of us connected to this common history.

June: Caribbean American Heritage Month 2006

Props to our Caribbean cousins/sisters/brothers for Caribbean American Heritage Month 2006. Jasmyn Cannick has a good link on her site where she writes about Oakland, California Congresswoman Barbara Lee's 2005 proclamation, with a list of a few US folks of (recent) Caribbean descent/origin, like California's Mervyn Dymally, "the first foreign born member of the United States Congress, Marcus Garvey, Sidney Poitier, Colin Powell, Cicely Tyson, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and Shirley Chisolm." The folks are even going to show us how to play cricket on the National Mall in DC. Do they plan to let women join in? More events and details at CaribbeanAmericanMonth.org site.

Color of wealth: what's the racial wealth divide?

The Color of Wealth is available June 2006. Subtitled "The Story Behind the US Racial Wealth Divide", authors include my girl Rose Brewer along with Rebecca Adamson, Meizhu Lui, Barbara Robles and Betsy Leondar-Wright.

Woman of colour and M.I.T.-trained economist Julianne Malveaux reviews TCoW: "... shows how contemporary wealth differences evolve from pivotal points in our history, and explains how public policy, even when well meaning, reinforces existing inequality. This book is an important contribution to critical work on race and economics.” Julianne's most recent book is Wall Street, Main Street and the Side Street: A Mad Economist Takes a Stroll.

The Color of Wealth press release explains that for every 100 cents (dollar) owned by an "average" US white family, an "average" US family of color has just 18 cents. "Why do people of color have so little wealth? The Color of Wealth lays bare a dirty secret: for centuries, people of color have been barred by laws and by discrimination from participating in government wealth-building programs that have benefited white Americans." This includes, for example, "post–World War II GI Bill programs [that] helped whites only—The Color of Wealth is the first book to demonstrate the decisive influence of government on Americans’ net worth."

"Great Society" Speech, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, Univ Michigan May 22, 1964

Friday, 22 May 1964 "... the "Great Society" is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor. ..." - Lyndon Johnson, 36th president of the United States of America

Why does Bush talk about 'the Americas' but not the OAS?

There's a major disconnect in the Americas. I can't figure when or where or how it began. Bush is in Chicago talking to the National Restaurant Assoc. and answering citizen questions about "the Americas" and relations with "our neighbors" in "the Western Hemisphere". Actually, seems more like throwing tomatoes at Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Chavez 'just happens to be' a pardo - which means he's a racially mixed person of African and Native descent; like a lot of us from the Americas. And Bush never mentions anything about the OAS. (As a matter of fact, neither does the MSM.) Heck. It's almost right out back of the White House.

Speaking of "neighbors" and "neighborhoods", this may ring a bell: "... In present day Venezuelan society, notes respected commentator Gregory Wilpert, "The correspondence between skin color and class membership is quite stunning at times. To confirm this observation, all one has to do is compare middle to upper class neighborhoods, where predominantly lighter colored folks live, with the barrios, which are clearly predominantly inhabited by darker skinned Venezuelans."..." (A Real Racial Democracy? "Hugo Chávez and the Politics of Race" [Venezuela], N. Kozloff, Counterpunch, 14 Oct 2005)

             OAS - Organization of American States
              17th Street & Constitution Ave., NW
                      Washington, DC 20006

National Archives: Congressional records on slavery and the international slave trade

Interesting reading here; a link to the National Archives' holdings of US Congress records on American slavery and the international slave trade. If you want to know what the Continental Congress thought about enslaving Black people, or what congressmen said - on the record - about Haiti's fight for independence (doing just what the US already did), it's here.

Happy Mother's Day weekend; Nikki and Debbie marry on Logo

It's a busy day. This post and its title transformed a few times as typepad goes through changes. Need a new server?? I'm inspired by a kind of fun show on Logo called First Comes Love in which Cannuck Scott Thompson (a "Kid in the Hall") plays wedding organiser to two ladies, Nikki and Debbie. Scott always seems to make it clear he's a Canadian and not one of us from South of the (northern) border. Anyway, each of the women has two children of her own, equaling four kids. I cracked up over Scott's nickname for Debbie's ex. "Captain Custody". He had a 'problem' with Debbie's children - to whom she gave birth, by the way - attending their own mother's wedding. Not nice behaviour. But they did. Both ladies like a singer named Lea DeLaria who surprises them by singing at their reception. Really a nice story. On the same channel gay Black American author E. Lynn Harris hosts a segment of "In the Life". Very informative. Happy Mother's day weekend to Mom, Ana, Gudger, Dora, Paola and Grace, my aunts and cousins, and my buddies - Sandra and everyone... to all of us. And oh yeah, for real, more later on France's May 10th slavery commemoration (previous post) - et bonne Fete des Meres.

Immigration through our eyes: Black & Native Americans; Diamond's article in Intl Migration Review 1998

Came across an interesting reference. "African-American Attitudes towards United States Immigration Policy", by Jeff Diamond in International Migration Review, volume 32, number 2; Summer 1998, pp. 451-470. Diamond goes back as far as the status of Black Americans before the Revolutionary War vis a vis the immigrants - basically all white and European - introduced into the US then.

Below, one of the things I want to ask is whether large-scale immigration within the Americas wouldn't be an excellent - and logical - topic at the OAS. And if you don't know what the OAS is, please read on.

... (continued below)

Louisiana from France to Katrina: It's not finished - c'est pas fini

France has vowed that each May she will recall her slavery history. May 10th and the Taubira law; abolition on 28 May 1848. Europe. Africa. Americas. Indian Ocean. Will she remember all the people and places she's been? And what will France remember? Slave ships and sharks. The frigid graveyard of the Atlantic middle passage. Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guiana and Saint Domingue. Saint Domingue. Haiti, Ayiti. Stolen labour, stolen people. Their arms, backs, hands and legs sold and re-sold to grow the cane to make the rum. Sodden Europe. Femmes mulatres. New Orleans. "Creole cottages". 'Second families'. Tan, black and brown concubines. Quadroon balls in spring. Then a courageous New Orleanian woman of African descent. Henriette DeLille who one day would say NO, renounce sexual exploitation as "tradition", and found the Sisters of the Holy Family. Louisiane turned Louisiana. Baton Rouge. Lafayette. New Orleans. Native people and Africans. Spanish and French America. A storm called Katrina. Will France remember? Check this video via Rosie's blog. It is not over. Ce n'est pas fini.

State of the Black Union on CSPAN!

My brother just shared with me that the annual, public, free SOBU conference - the State of the Black Union - sponsored by broadcaster Tavis Smiley, is now being televised on CSPAN. Tavis says there are 5,000 persons attending the conference in Houston, Texas, plus scores more watching nationally and internationally via CSPAN. Thanks bro. Check it.

Back to Burning Women at the stake? South Dakota's move to end abortion & women's most basic freedom of choice

I am a 'pro-choice mom'. I am a mother (and Grandma) - I am a mother by choice and I am highly concerned over South Dakota's state government positioning itself for its assault on Roe v. Wade - the US law that gives women the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. My guess is that with its large population of Native Americans and including Indian "reservations" (Native 'reserves' in Canada) such as Rosebud and Pine Ridge, hard-pressed American Indian women will be disproportionately affected. Monica Davey writes in her NYTimes article, "If enacted, the bill, the most sweeping ban approved in any state in more than a decade, requires the signature of Gov. Mike Rounds, a Republican, who opposes abortion." Well of course; just what we need. In South Dakota's long and racially exclusionary "racially hostile" political tradition, one more white guy awarded the reins of power who pretty obviously never had an abortion and never will need to even consider one for his own body, yet politically poised to run roughshod over thousands of women's (and other men's) lives. Read my lips. In the long run any effort that might ban legal access to safe and affordable abortion will backfire. It is not going to work. You can try to destroy Roe v. Wade, but women's lives, minds and our political organisation will not turn back to pre-1973. ...Come to think of it, not even pre-2003. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mike.

A Black History Month 2006 Plan of Action

"If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development" - Aristotle. I have three priorities for BHM 2006 - BHM being Black (or African American) history month. One is preparing for next year's 2007 quadricentennial (400th) anniversary of the founding of Virginia - or more precisely, founding of the Jamestown colony by subjects of the King of England, and eventual founding of the English Virginia colony, predecessor of what became the US state (including what today is Kentucky). Priority #2 is May 10th - le 10 mai 2006 - France's new national day to publicly, officially remember France's involvement in African slavery. Internationally it's fairly obvious that when it comes to modern world history's long era of slavery many or most of our societies long ago chose amnesia rather than historical accuracy and responsibility. (Read Alan Rice - "British Selective Amnesia and the Political Imperative to Conserve Black Atlantic Memory" in Revisiting slave narratives , ed. Judith Misrahi-Barak.) Yet even as Americans go on dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, 10 May is central to France's other former territory, la Louisiane, and to the history and evolution of its people and descendants. As children in Baton Rouge, Louisiana we studied Longfellow's 1847 epic poem, Evangeline, about the Acadians' migration to Louisiana from what is now Canada. But no one ever mentioned a massive migration to New Orleans around 1803 to about 1812 from the French part of the island Saint Domingue in the Caribbean - the part of the island that now is Haiti. Somewhere someone must have written a story or poem about this. New Orleans' native Anne Rice's book, The Feast of All Saints, for example. Decades after reading Evangeline in Louisiana I want to know how Louisiane and Nouvelle France (New France) relate to each other. This leads me to my third priority, an affirmation of events 2 and 1 which are related to each other in the context of European expansion: the need for other European nations besides France to 'come out of the closet' about their own roles in the interconnected international slave trade. These nations will do well to follow France's example: Britain, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Norway - the old amalgamated Denmark-Norway. The annual May 10th commemoration would not be happening were it not for member of French Parliament Christiane Taubira (Guyane francaise), as well as the French parliament which in 2001 passed her Taubira Law, and president Chirac and others who now have formally acknowledged France's slavery and slave trade role. We also thank France for its eventual role in the abolition of same, as well as for its contribution as the first country to declare slavery a crime against humanity. "... On one of these sale days, I saw a mother lead seven children to the auction-block. She knew that some of them would be taken from her; but they took all. The children were sold to a slave-trader, and their mother was bought by a man in her own town..." - continued below, Chapter 3, The Slaves' New Year's Day, Harriet Jacobs' 1860 autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Who wants to hear American Indians' own stories? National symposium, March 2-3

A national symposium on what I call the "enforced invisibility" of Native Americans in the USA?? Well it's about time. Speaking as a journalist I have to suggest that there's one big elephant in this room which this symposium should address - among many other things. That issue is why most U.S. news items that use a variety of US population statistics always, always leave out American Indians - as if they don't exist. I've actually had people in the United States of America (and sometimes in other countries) - including 'foreigners' and a few "domestics" (US natives) - try to tell me either a) "American Indians no longer exist", or b) "not enough American Indians exist today for them to matter, or to be included or consulted in U.S. public discussions on just about anything". Such dis-information is about as criminally negligent as it is sad and almost needless to say I've shot down such comments without blinking an eye. The whole thing of continually dismissing American Indians in their/our own country makes my blood run cold. And why are all of us as US communities of colour consistently and separately always compared to middle-class and affluent Whites instead of comparing our successes and the "challenges" we face to each other? Usually what's being compared revolves around some problem or something negative and basically it's almost invariably never a positive comparison in favour of Americans of colour. Why is that? Whether it's data on rates of diabetes or obesity or average levels of education or un/employment or home ownership, Latinos are compared to so-called "non-Latino" whites; Black Americans are compared to whites; Asian Americans are compared to whites, while both Native American and Pacific Islander populations (Hawai'i, Samoa, Fiji, Mariana Islands, etc.) usually are pretty well left out. March's upcoming seminar is: Who Wants to Hear Our Story? Communications and Contemporary Native Americans - A Media Symposium. March 2-3, 2006, Washington, DC. "The absence of U.S. media coverage about Native American communities means that Indian Country today is a mystery to most people. While there are rampant stereotypes, realities and cultural strengths remain hidden. ..." There's a $50 fee that pays for "two breakfasts, lunch on Thursday, a reception on Thursday night, and all symposium materials. Participants will need to make their own housing arrangements." The website also quotes Jose - Jose Barreiro: "... In the increasingly organized anti-Indian climate, a focus on media attitudes and content is crucial. We are glad to join FCNL in seeking both clear strategy and substantial engagement of media by Native Nations and a better and deeper education for mainstream journalists on the nature of tribal rights. -- Jose Barreiro, senior advisor, American Indian Policy and Media Initiative." The co-sponsors of the symposium are listed on the site (no, I haven't linked them!):

Friends Committee on National Legislation (conference coordinator)
American Indian Policy and Media Initiative
Americans for Indian Opportunity
American Friends Service Committee
Call to Renewal
First Nations Development Institute
Honor Our Neighbors' Origins and Rights (HONOR)
Institute for Tribal Government
The Interfaith Alliance
National American Indian Housing Council
National Congress of American Indians
National Council of Churches
National Indian Child Welfare Association
National Indian Council on Aging
National Indian Health Board
National Native American Families Together
National Urban Indian Family Coalition
Native American Journalists Association
Native American Rights Fund

France's New National Remembrance Day for Slavery - African/Black History in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Asia

Two years ago, in November 2003, with the Alliance of People of African Descent in Europe, I participated in the European Social Forum held in France - in Saint Denis and next-door Paris. We had a lot of discussion of France's history of Black enslavement, especially in and with Haiti. This was on the eve of Haiti's 2004 bi-centennial (which was greatly under-observed internationally). Early 2004 witnessed the "mysterious" 'removal' of elected Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide. What role if any did France have in that?? The 2003 ESF experience in Paris could be the subject of at least one other blog entry. In any case, I would be very grateful if someone reading this might share this with Jacques Chirac and with anyone else thinking, or who needs to think, about public policy and public responsibility, and paucity of both, toward the historic global trafficking of African people. Today (actually yesterday) from Paris Associated Press reports: "France will introduce a national day of remembrance for slavery, an issue that still wounds "a large number of our fellow citizens," President Jacques Chirac said Wednesday." [4 Jan 2006.] Note to M. Chirac - this extends far beyond France. Not only is such a decision unbelievably overdue, these "wounds" of which Jacques Chirac speaks are found among and well beyond his "fellow" and sister French citizens. (This entry continues below!)

It's Kwanzaa 2005 - Habari gani

Here are the seven principles of Kwanzaa, or the "Nguzo Saba", in the (arabised) East African Swahili language. The standard Kwanzaa definitions I found at swagga.com, however, the original parts of the accompanying definitions for each of the Nguzo Saba are mine - so if you reprint, please share credit (i.e., fair use). Kwanzaa begins annually on what the UK and Commonwealth call "Boxing Day" - that is the day after 25 December, Christmas. December 26 - Umoja (unity); Dec 27 - Kujichagulia (self-determination) - Never give up. Resolve to not be a bump on a log. To openly and repeatedly be and describe ourselves and our role in this world; to define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves; Dec 28 - Ujima (collective work and responsibility) - to build and maintain our community together. To pledge to contribute to re-building the lives and communities of our loved ones all over the US Gulf Coast. To not deliberately instigate (i.e., to refrain from instigating) problems for our sisters and brothers; desist from making our sisters' and brothers' problems worse than they may be. To not put our folks' problems 'in our mouths' (i.e., not talk about people's business) if we have no intention of helping to positively solve the problems. To take a positive and active interest in our sisters' and brothers' problems and to work together to help solve them; 29 Dec - Ujamaa (cooperative economics) - faithful networking; to patiently and persistently do everything we can to build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together; 30 Dec - Nia (purpose) - to make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness; 31 Dec - Kuumba (creativity) - to do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than it was when we were born into it and inherited it; 1 January 2006 - Imani (faith) - to believe with all our heart in ourselves and our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle. Peace.

A "Native Christmas" to all - and Ramadan, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa

Please accept our warmest greeting from Great Turtle Island - America. And thank you to my friend Sandra (One Feather) who shared this image with me.

Hurricane WILMA Roaring toward Yucatan and South Florida

The US national hurricane center - based in Miami - is one of the best places I know to get latest info on hurricanes present and past. Only two days ago I warned weather scientists were tracking a new tropical depression in the Caribbean. I think it was #24 of the season. Now it's been named Wilma. Hurricane Wilma. Between then and today Wilma went from a depression to a tropical storm, and then overnight since yesterday from a Cat. 1 hurricane to the biggest, baddest Category 5 storm in tracking history. Haiti and Jamaica have already been hit. Central America seems about to be. This storm is currently on track to come aground somewhere along Mexico's Yucatan peninsula near Cozumel and over the coming weekend it may consume South Florida. That information and the course of this storm could change, which is why we need to pay attention and share information. If you have details to share about this storm and what's happening currently, please add them here as a comment. Between natural disasters and everything else going on all over this planet, around the world populations most likely to be affected need as many of their own people as possible - children, adults, women as well as men - to have the most appropriate and well-conducted disaster training and preparation that can be made available. I don't know all the parties out there responsible for things like this. But I do believe someone reading this does.

Lancaster UK Remembers Role in Transatlantic Slave Trade: STAMP Memorial 10 October 2005

Native American Day is this week, which some still call "Columbus Day." Actually the Italian chap to whom they refer was Cristoforo Colombo, and his "adventures" were financed by Spain. Hmmm... all this sounds a lot like 'globalisation' - including the centuries' long kidnap and deportation of millions & millions - and more millions - of Africans. So, thank you to everyone involved in tomorrow's historic dedication of Lancaster UK's memorial to the African-descendant victims of the Transatlantic slave trade. The ceremony takes place tomorrow, Monday, at quayside in Lancaster near the Millenium Bridge. See the official press release, below. The contact is Dr. Alan J. Rice, who is Reader in American Cultural Studies at the University of Central Lancashire (UK), and author of Radical Narratives of the Black Atlantic, published 2003 by Continuum. Black American former exile Preston King will be guest of honour. King is an "internationally acclaimed African American scholar and Civil Rights activist. In 1961 Mr. King was a very young man who "refused to be drafted for military service ... when a white Southern officer addressed him as "boy" and subsequently his [U.S.] passport was confiscated. It was not returned until 1999 after a long-running international campaign led to a Presidential pardon from Bill Clinton." That's just a gist of the irony. Bill Clinton was about the same age as Preston King, although unlike King, Clinton was (mostly) not Black. And of course Bill was allowed by U.S. authorities to leave the U.S. and go off to the UK to study at Oxford. The rest is history, as they say.

Official press release: "STAMP, the Slave Trade Arts Memorial Project, is proud to announce the official unveiling and dedication of 'CAPTURED AFRICANS' a memorial for the victims of the Transatlantic Slave Trade on the quayside in Lancaster, close to the Millennium Bridge.

The memorial was conceived and developed by Manchester-based artist Kevin Dalton-Johnson as the culmination of an extensive education outreach programme involving over 300 children around the district working with ten supporting artists.  Its realisation was made possible with Millennium Commission Lottery funding.

The ceremony takes place on Columbus Day, 10th October 2005 at 5pm. The Right Worshipful Mayor of Lancaster, Councillor Joyce Taylor will welcome guests and our guest of honour African American Professor Preston King.

The ceremony should be lively and interesting. Professor King's dedication of the memorial will be followed by the launching of a willow boat of offerings of atonement and remembrance into the River Lune. This formal ceremony will close with a drumming performance by young people involved with the project.

Earlier this year, in Bristol, a resident asked where in that City he could pour his libation and honour his ancestors. Unlike other places that have shied away from moments of history that they are least proud of, Lancaster now has a sensitive marker to the loss of life and liberty of so many African people. Kevin Dalton-Johnson's 'CAPTURED AFRICANS' offers a place to pause and think, a place for quiet reflection on the human cost of this history.

STAMP are grateful to the Millennium Commission, Arts Council North West, Lancaster City Council and Lancashire County Council for funding the project and the American Embassy for enabling us to invite and welcome Professor Preston King to join this ground breaking event.   [End] (Editor's notes included below.)
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