Memory of slavery's history

In various former slave countries,social actors, who identify themselves as descendants of slave trade victims are carring out projets to highlight slavery's history and try by the way to denounce the present social and racial inequalities. 

Lisa Aubrey is associate professor of African and African American studies and political science in the School of Social Transformation. She has also conducted community-embedded work related to reconnecting peoples of the African Diaspora to their heritage lands of Cameroon, Nigeria, and Ghana. 

Jean Eric Sende, president of the JACSL association and project manager of Memory and Slavery for Africa 50, has organized  a week of commemoration of abolition of slavery with Lisa Aubrey in Villeurbanne, France May 10 - 2018. 

Conferences were held mainly in middle schools. The aim is to improve children's education to interculturality and to prevent racism. It is also to built citizenship especially for afro-descendant young people who suffer from racism and discrimination.

Slavery is a legacy shouldered daily by millions of people. We must pull the roots of this racism to allow citizenship to grow.

With the expansion of the Atlantic slave trade, theories of black inferiority were developed, it was in the interest of slave traders and slave owners to say that Africans were not human beings and that they were different from the rest of humanity Racism and discrimination grafted on these racial theories

France, one of the great colonial powers, is the first nation to have recognized slavery as a crime against humanity. 

Christiane Taubira, a native French Guiana politician was the driving force behind a 21 May 2001 law that recognises the Atlantic slave trade and slavery as a crime against humanity.

On May 21st 2001 the French parliament adopts Act 2001-434, known as "Taubira's Law" with which the French Republic recognizes both the transatlantic and Indian Ocean Negro slave trade, on the one hand, and slavery itself, on the other, that were practiced from the 15th century, in the Americas, the Caribbean, in Indian Ocean and Europe against African, Amerindian, Malagasy and Indian populations, as constituting crimes against humanity

According to the Taubira’s law Article 2 slavery must be teached better than it is done in school through teaching, meetings and any kind of transfer of knowledge.

In France the 10th of May has been declared, since 2006, a “national day of memory for slave trade, slavery and their abolition”

Day for the abolition of slavery May 10-2015-Report.pdf

Week of commemoration of abolition of slavery-Villeurbanne May10-2018-Report.pdf




Ilham Seghrouchni