Rise Festival 'Down-graded'

Mayor of London cuts anti-racism from Rise festival
received: 19th May 2008
all credits: NAAR

The National Assembly Against Racism (NAAR) has been informed by the Greater London Authority that anti-racism will no longer be a central element of the annual 'Rise: London united against racism festival' due to take place in July. A free anti-racist music festival has been held in London by the trade unions since 1996. Since 2001 this was supported by the Mayor of London, the trade unions and the National Assembly Against Racism - Britain's broadest anti-racist coalition. It was Europe's largest anti-racist music festival.

The festival has consistently attracted major international and homegrown talent to perform for fees far less than the would commercially command because of the anti racist message. In 2005, the festival, with artists including artists Lemar , Billy Bragg and Suggs , was part of a series of events helping celebrate London's unity in the aftermath of the terrorist bombings of 7 July that year.

This year the central anti-racist message of the festival has been dropped by Boris Johnson's administration. Initial publicity for the festival confirms this dropping the message 'London united against racism' - indeed not mentioning racism at all.

A spokesperson for NAAR said:

"We were contacted by the Greater London Authority last week and told anti-racism will no longer be the central message of the Rise festival. This is confirmed by initial publicity which drops the message "London united against racism" and all reference to opposing racism."

"Support for the festival from performers and communities has always been based on this anti-racist message so the change is sure to be highly controversial. The sincerity of Boris Johnson's claimed commitment to opposing racism in his election campaign is shown to be false by the fact that one of his first decisions is to abandon Europe's biggest anti-racist festival."

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Obama Race Fever

Racist Incidents Make Some Obama Campaigners Pause
First published: 14^th May 2008
All credits: Washington Post

Danielle Ross was alone in an empty room at the Obama campaign headquarters in Kokomo, Ind., a cellphone in one hand, a voter call list in the other. She was stretched out on the carpeted floor wearing laceless sky-blue Converses, stories from the trail on her mind. It was the day before Indiana's primary, and she had just been chased by dogs while canvassing in a Kokomo suburb. But that was not the worst thing to occur since she postponed her sophomore year at Middle Tennessee State University, in part to hopscotch America stumping for Barack Obama.

Here's the worst: In Muncie, a factory town in the east-central part of Indiana, Ross and her cohorts were soliciting support for Obama at malls, on street corners and in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and they ran into "a horrible response," as Ross put it, a level of anti-black sentiment that none of them had anticipated.

"The first person I encountered was like, 'I'll never vote for a black person,' " recalled Ross, who is white and just turned 20. "People just weren't receptive."

For all the hope and excitement Obama's candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed -- and unreported -- this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They've been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they've endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can't fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president.

The contrast between the large, adoring crowds Obama draws at public events and the gritty street-level work to win votes is stark. The candidate is largely insulated from the mean-spiritedness that some of his foot soldiers deal with away from the media spotlight.

Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"

Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said she, too, came across "a lot of racism" when campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: "White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people."

Obama campaign officials say such incidents are isolated, that the experience of most volunteers and staffers has been overwhelmingly positive.

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Legacy of Dr King

A Civil Rights Icon of our Times
all credits: 4WardEver Campaign UK

History is indeed made up of significant events which shape our future and outstanding leaders who influence our destiny.

Martin Luther King's contributions to our history place him in this inimitable position. In his short life, Martin Luther King was instrumental in helping us realize and rectify those unspeakable flaws which were tarnishing the name of America. The events which took place in and around his life were earth shattering, for they represented an America which was hostile and quite different from America as we see it today.

Martin Luther King, Jr. catapulted to fame when he came to the assistance of Rosa Parks, the Montgomery, Alabama Black seamstress who refused to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus to a White passenger. In those days American Blacks were confined to positions of second class citizenship by restrictive laws and customs. To break these laws would mean subjugation and humiliation by the police and the legal system. Beatings, imprisonment and sometimes death were waiting for those who defied the System.

Other articles…

Martin Luther King Jr. has now been dead longer than he lived.
But what an extraordinary life it was.
Seattle Times Profile & Photo Gallery >

Martin Luther King: The Nobel Peace Prize 1964
Biography on Nobelprize.com

The King Center
Established in 1968 by Coretta Scott King, The King Center is the official, living memorial dedicated to the advancement of the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., leader of America’s greatest non-violent movement for justice, equality and peace.


The full version of Martin Luther King's famous "I have a dream" speech.
Click Here >

Race Advisor, Lee Jasper, suspended

Jasper Asks Mayor To Refer Allegations To Police
all credits: BLINK

Lee Jasper, Ken Livingstone's advisor on race and policing, has requested that the Mayor refer allegations made against him in recent weeks to the police for thorough investigation.

In a statement issued by the Greater London Authority Jasper said:
"I am being prevented from clearing my name, black organisations across London are being weakened by a systematic campaign in the Evening Standard from seeking funds, and a deliberate attempt is being made to divert attention from the real issues confronting London at the Mayoral election."

"This is being done deliberately and consciously - far from seeking clarity the Evening Standard for ten weeks has been running stories of false allegations against me without taking alleged 'evidence' to the police."

"Members of the London Assembly claim they wish to investigate 'a tide of corruption' while in fact they have prevented me from testifying before it. They have refused my repeated offers to appear before them to explain my work and disprove these allegations and they are now refusing to hold any hearings until 5th March."

"The deliberate aim of this delay is not to achieve clarity but to string out a series of unfounded and poisonous allegations in the media and investigation by the police will clear my name and put a stop to this."

In the same statement Mr Livingstone said: "I want to make completely clear the police have made no approach to me to refer these allegations. We are seeing an attempt at a trial by the media with the London Assembly not merely refusing to scrutinise but also preventing Lee Jasper answering these allegations even when he volunteers to do so and a police investigation will put a stop to this disgraceful political charade."

"The Evening Standard should immediately take any evidence it claims to have to the police or stop making these false allegations - in the good old phrase put up or shut up."

"In agreeing Lee's request I have also made the extremely difficult decision that like any GLA officer subject to a police investigation, Lee Jasper will be suspended pending the outcome of the police investigation."

"I believe this investigation will exonerate Lee Jasper and show this to be a shameful campaign. As the interests of London are best served by putting an end to this malignant political charade I have concluded that a full police investigation is the most authoritative way to end this story once and for all."


Related articles:

Livingstone suspends race adviser as he calls in police to investigate corruption allegations
16th February 2008

Mayor's statement on new allegations made by the Evening Standard
21st December 2007

News Digest (World)

Afghanistan's refugee crisis 'ignored'
13th February 2008

A growing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is being overlooked as an unknown number of people are fleeing their homes, caught between security forces and the Taliban, Red Cross officials have told the Guardian.

They say they have less access now to displaced people than at any time over the past 27 years. "The conflict has not only intensified but it has also spread over the last few years. Prolonged human suffering is causing real concern in ever larger areas," said Reto Stocker, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Kabul. "There is little capacity to address it. We've never had so little access."

Read full article >
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Australia's new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has delivered a historic apology to the country's Aboriginal community
12th February 2008

In the first act of parliament today, he apologised to the Stolen Generations - young Aboriginal children taken from their parents in a policy of assimilation which lasted from the 19th century to the late 1960s. One of those, Ruby Hunter, was eight when she was taken from her parents.

Read full article >
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What can an apology achieve for Aborigines?
12th February 2008

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said sorry for the past mistreatment of indigenous people by successive parliaments and governments. In particular, he apologised for the long-running policy which saw the forcible removal of thousands of aboriginal children from their families; a practice that persisted in Australia until the 1970s.

Australians hope the apology will help repair the breach between the country's white and black citizens. How significant do you think is this move by Mr Rudd? Can it bring reconciliation to the Australian society? Do you think the action has come too late? What can other countries learn from Australia? Are you an Aborigine or a white Australian? .

Read full article & comment >
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Man jailed for being Rasta

Man jailed in Dubai 'targeted for being Rastafarian'
9th Feb 2008

All credits - Milton Keynes Citizen

The brother of a man, from the West Midlands, jailed in Dubai accused authorities in the United Arab Emirates of targeting him for being a "Rastafarian" and committing a "grave injustice".
Keith Brown, 43, passed through Dubai airport on his way from Ethiopia to his home in Smethwick when he was stopped and searched.

Customs officials uncovered 0.003g of cannabis - an amount which would be invisible to the naked eye and weighs less than a single grain of sugar - in the tread of his shoe.

The youth development officer was sentenced to four years in prison but his incarceration has outraged friends and family.

Lee Brown, 57, said: "Keith's distraught and he's angry, he isn't happy. To think that something like that has happened to him when he was in transit ... we believe it was because he was a Rastafarian that he was singled out."

Insisting that Mr Brown was unaware of the traces of drugs on his shoe, he added: "He could have stepped in it walking along and he got hell for that.

"I think they were hoping to find other things on him. It's hard to put into words how you feel about such a grave injustice."

Mr Brown also said his brother was aware of Dubai's zero-tolerance drugs policy and insisted he would not have broken the law deliberately.

The list of banned substances in the UAE includes many products which are available over-the-counter and off-the-shelf in the UK. These include medications such as codeine, a common ingredient in pain relief and cold-and-flu medication, and the common baking ingredient, poppy seeds.

1,000 anti-fascists wreck Oxford’s sham debate

by Sian Ruddick

I was one of over a 1,000 protesters from all walks of life that gathered outside the Oxford Union debating club on Monday of this week to try and stop it from hosting a “forum” featuring two leading Nazis.

The decision to roll out the red carpet for Nick Griffin, leader of the fascist British National Party (BNP), and convicted Holocaust denier David Irving, had caused outrage among students, trade unionists and community groups.

The atmosphere at the protest was electric as people thronged around the Union building, arguing with those trying to attend the meeting.

The air was full of real political debate – in sharp contrast to the superficial rituals that the Union prides itself on.

See full report >

Police: stop more black suspects

One of Britain's leading black police officers is to demand that more people from ethnic minorities must be stopped and searched if the fight against inner-city gun and knife crime is to succeed.

In a speech that will reignite one of the most contentious issues in British policing, the president of the National Black Police Association will dramatically call for an increase in the policing strategy in black communities. It marks a U-turn by the association, which has previously questioned the high proportion of black people stopped and searched by police.

Speaking at the group's annual conference, Keith Jarrett will ask Police Minister Tony McNulty and Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, to consider escalating stop-and-searches among black people to reduce the number of shootings that have claimed the lives of another two teenagers in the past week.

The disputed use of stop-and-search has arguably caused more conflict than any other modern policing tactic and first achieved national notoriety during the Eighties, when it was blamed for precipitating inner-city race riots. Black people are four times more likely to be stopped than white people, according to Scotland Yard's figures, which continues to give rise to charges of police racism.

Read full article >

Stephen Lawrence Case

Yard cleared over BBC claims in Lawrence case
13^th October 2007

Scotland Yard yesterday attacked the BBC's standards and ethics after an official report found no evidence to support allegations in a BBC documentary that the force covered up claims that a corrupt officer thwarted the hunt for Stephen Lawrence's murderers.
The Guardian has learned that the Independent Police Complaints Commission report will exonerate the Yard over BBC claims that the Metropolitan police kept vital testimony about a corrupt officer from the public inquiry into why the first murder investigation was bungled.
More >

'No corruption' in Lawrence case
13^th October 2007
Claims that the first police probe into the murder of black 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence was hindered by a corrupt officer are unfounded, a watchdog says.
More >

Lawrence Inquiry history & film clips:
The Inquiry History >
BBC Film Reports >
The Stephen Lawrence Centre >

The Stephen Lawrence Q&A
Who is Stephen Lawrence?
Stephen Lawrence was an 18-year-old sixth form student who was stabbed to death in Eltham, south London, on the night of April 22, 1993. It soon became clear that the murder was motivated by racism.
More >

The bigotry of bumbling Boris

Boris Johnson is “not fit” to be mayor of London, campaigners said, after his shameful record on race was exposed.

Today we can reveal that beneath the likable, bumbling exterior the Conservative MP for Henley harbours deep-seated racist views. The Tory higher education spokesman previously claimed the Stephen Lawrence inquiry was a “witchhunt” and that Nelson Mandela’s South Africa was a “tyranny of black majority rule.”

He also referred to black children as “piccaninnies” and said Africans have “watermelon smiles.”

He has even claimed the British Empire ended slavery and blamed “native rulers” for inventing slavery. And he accused inner city “inhabitants” in Britain of being benefit scroungers and of “pissing on the loyalty” of the indigenous population.

Read More >

Johnson 'would destroy London's unity' as mayor

Doreen Lawrence, the mother of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, yesterday launched a fierce personal attack on Boris Johnson, saying he would destroy multicultural London if elected mayor, and that no informed black person would vote for him.

Ms Lawrence, who does not normally become involved in party politics, said she had been moved to make the criticisms by her anger at Mr Johnson's attitude to the Macpherson inquiry in 1999 into the Metropolitan police's failure to bring her son's killers to justice 14 years ago.

Read more >

Charles urged to halt ‘racist abuse’ of soldier

all credits - Times Online

The Prince of Wales has been urged to step down as Colonel of the Welsh Guards unless he can intervene to end the alleged racist abuse of a Jamaican soldier serving in the regiment.

Private Kerry Hylton is taking the army to an employment tribunal over a series of incidents at his barracks in Birdcage Walk, close to Buckingham Palace.

Hylton’s solicitor has written to Prince Charles complaining that letters to the commanding officer of the Welsh Guards detailing the abuse allegations have gone unanswered.

The tribunal has been told that Hylton, a chef with the Welsh Guards, has been repeatedly called a “n*****”, a “dumb-arsed n*****”, a “black bastard” and a “black c***”. His wife and children have been left in fear after two incidents in which the locks on the doors at the family’s married quarters were superglued shut.

When Hylton complained that a noncommissioned officer who racially abused him had also punched him, leaving him requiring hospital treatment, he was himself arrested by the Royal Military police.

The allegations of racism are likely to concern Charles, who in 1986 highlighted the race issue among the Queen’s household troops when he remarked that there were no black faces at the Trooping the Colour ceremony.

In his letter to the prince, John Mackenzie, Hylton’s solicitor, wrote: “It seems to me that your regiment has no interest in safeguarding the interests of the ethnic minority private soldiers acting as chefs in the battalion.”

Although Hylton is a private in the Royal Logistic Corps rather than a guardsman, he works full-time for the Welsh Guards.

Mackenzie’s letter went on: “In view of your constitutional position, I write to urge you to cease to act as Colonel of the Welsh Guards until the regiment can show that it takes seriously its obligation to ensure that ethnic minority soldiers are treated fairly.”

Hylton’s wife Andrea said that she and her two young children, Andre, 3, and four-year-old Kerryann had been left feeling “frightened and unwelcome” by the attacks on their army flat. She thought they had been generated by the racism claim.

After Charles complained 20 years ago about the lack of ethnic minorities in the guards regiments, they recruited Richard Stokes, their first black soldier. But Stokes quit the Grenadier Guards, despite encouragement from Charles to remain, after suffering racist attacks including verbal abuse similar to Hylton’s.

The Ministry of Defence said: “The army has a zero tolerance policy to racism and takes allegations of racism very seriously.” Clarence House declined to comment.

Read Mick Smith's defence blog at www.timesonline.co.uk/micksmith

Tory website axes Jasper "lynching" remark

An independent Tory website removed a comment suggesting that London mayoral race advisor Lee Jasper should be hung from a flagpole outside City Hall.

Conservative Home, a site regarded as Tory members' favourite blog, removed the posting after Blink highlighted it. The offensive comment was posted amid a discussion about hoisting the Union Jack outside London City Hall. Tory assembly member Roger Evans wrote: "There are three flagpoles at City Hall, so we could fly the Union flag, the St George Cross and something else..."

Another member, using the name Genuine Conservative replied: "Personally Roger I would suggest Lee Jasper for the third flagpole."
Yesterday Sam Coates, deputy editor of Conservative Home, deleted the comment by Genuine Conservative but claimed it could have been sent by a Labour member out to cause trouble.

Read more >

Slavery Bicentenary.... The Talk!?

African descendants living in the UK feel that there should be a Parliamentary Commission into the chattel enslavement of African peoples and that the government should make reparations for its role in slavery.

“Something needs to be done to resolve the past, to get closure,” said Janette, who feels that the British government should hold a Parliamentary Commission on Truth, Justice and Reconciliation.

Her view is shared by that of Letticia, who said “There are issues that need to be sorted out. We can only put this behind us once there is reconciliation.” Ralph, 47, also agreed that a Parliamentary Commission “would help towards healing.”

A survey was carried out by Imani Media Ltd to examine attitudes within the black community towards slavery and the Bicentenary. It follows the commemorative service held at Westminster Abbey last month, where inside the church, Toyin Agbetu of Ligali, protested, calling it “an insult to Africans.”

Read full articles >>


My protest was born of anger not madness
Toyin Agbetu
3rd April 2007 - The Guardian

According to many reports, on Tuesday last week a crazed madman breached Westminster Abbey security, screamed obscenities and demanded an unreserved apology for the Maafa (the "great tragedy", used to describe the enslavement of Africa) and financial compensation from the Queen and Tony Blair.

As the man at the centre of this version of events, I can say these assertions are total nonsense.
I was moved to make a collective voice heard at the commemorative ritual of appeasement and self-approval marking the bicentenary of the British parliamentary act to abolish what they disingenuously refer to as a "slave trade."

Read more >>

Klansman on the run!

Klansman seeks dismissal of charges in 1964 killings of two black teens

A reputed Ku Klux Klansman accused in the 1964 slayings of two black teenagers has asked a U.S. federal judge to dismiss the charges, saying the statute of limitations has expired. Assistant Federal Defender Kathy Nester filed the motion Friday in U.S. District Court on behalf of James Ford Seale, who pleaded not guilty Thursday to two counts of kidnapping and one count of conspiracy.

U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton said Saturday he had not seen the motion and could not comment.
Seale, 71, could be sentenced to up to life in prison if convicted in the slayings of Charles Moore and Henry Dee, both 19 when they died more than 40 years ago.
Prosecutors said Moore and Dee were seized and beaten by Klansmen, then thrown into the Mississippi River to drown.

Renewed interest in the case largely hinged on the work of Canadian filmmaker David Ridgen, who told interviewers in nagged at him that the famous Mississippi Burning victims, two of them white, got so much more attention from authorities than the two black teens back then.
So Ridgen, 38, teamed up with Moore's older brother, Thomas, now 63, who had never stopped pressing for justice, and they began an odyssey in 2005 that led to a headline-grabbing arrest this week. Ridgen's one-hour documentary, "Mississippi Cold Case," will likely air in February.

A second white man long suspected in the attack, reputed KKK member Charles Edwards, 72, has not been charged. People close to the investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Edwards was co-operating with authorities.
Seale and Edwards were arrested in the case in 1964. But the FBI - consumed by the search for three civil rights workers who had disappeared that summer - turned the case over to local authorities, who promptly threw out all charges. The Justice Department reopened the case in 2000.

Seale remained jailed pending a bail hearing set for Monday. His court-appointed lawyers said he is suffering from cancer. His trial is scheduled for April 2, though that is expected to be delayed. In the dismissal motion, Nester said prosecutors needed to have charged Seale under the law in effect at the time of the alleged offence. The statute of limitations on the federal crime of kidnapping is five years, meaning the deadline to charge Seale was 1969, she argued.
While the other cases dealt with murder charges, Seale's is the first case in Mississippi to involve federal kidnapping charges.

Earnest Avants, convicted in 2003 on federal charges of aiding and abetting in the killing of a black handyman in the Homochitto National Forest in Mississippi in 1966, was among the defendants in recent civil rights era crimes who argued the statute of limitations had run out.
A federal judge, later upheld by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled that there was not an unreasonable delay in indicting Avants, because the federal government did not become aware it had jurisdiction until 1999 when it was discovered that the slaying occurred in a national forest.

Seale's arrest Wednesday marked the latest attempt by prosecutors in the South to close the books on crimes from the civil rights era that went unpunished.
In recent years, authorities in Mississippi and Alabama won convictions in the 1963 assassination of NAACP activist Medgar Evers; the 1963 Birmingham, Ala., church bombing that killed four black girls; and the 1964 Philadelphia, Miss., slayings of the three civil rights workers - the case that led to the discovery of Moore's and Dee's bodies.

Timeline of the US Civil Rights Movement - Click here >>

History on the Agenda

Biography on Amy Garvey by Professor Tony Martin
29^th November 2006

It seems fitting that Ghana, once ruled by the inspirational Pan Africanist Kwame Nkrumah, will today host the launch of a biography on Amy Ashwood Garvey, first wife of the great black leader, Marcus Garvey.

Authored by Tony Martin, a professor of African Studies in Wellesley College, Massachusetts, USA, the book according to Martin reveals: The rich connection that exists between the Caribbean and Africa, the traditional home of the black race across the world.”

The book, he said, is the result of his extensive research on the life and time of Amy Ashwood Garvey, a woman he describes as one of the remarkable black female figures in the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) , The most successful Pan African movement and an association she co-founded with Marcus Garvey in Jamaica. Amy Ashwood became the first secretary of the movement in 1914. Read More >>

What is there to rejoice about says African led campaign group
27^th November 2006

Even before Tony Blair issued his statement of regret for slavery in Parliament today, campaign groups yesterday denounced the Prime Minister's hollow apology and called for a Parliamentary Commission on slavery.

In a statement to be read to Parliament today, the Prime Minister will say:

“It’s hard to believe that what would now be a crime against humanity was legal at the time…I believe that the bicentenary offers us a chance…to express our deep sorrow that it ever happened, that it could ever have happened and to rejoice at the different and better times we live in today.”

But campaign groups including African led organisation Rendezvous of Victory, immediately rounded on Tony Blair and denounced the apology. Kofi Mawuli Klu, Joint Co-ordinator of Rendezvous of Victory, rejected Tony Blair’s use of the term: “legal” in respect of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, calling it: “A falsification of the truth.” Read More >>

It's about time the issue was debated more openly
22^nd November 2006

Rendezvous of Victory, a grassroots organisation which promotes education on the legacies of enslavement has welcomed the Daily Mail’s anti slavery apology campaign, saying it will help publicise the issue and encourage debate.

Right wing newspapers Daily Mail and the London Evening Standard are opposed to the government’s plans to commemorate the Bicentenary of the Parliamentary Abolition of the Slave Trade in 2007, labelling the idea of an apology as “political correctness.”

In an attempt to belittle the significance of 2007 the newspapers launched a campaign called: Chain Mail designed to encourage hostility to the commemorations and the idea of an apology.

But the move was welcomed by Kofi Mawuli Klu, Joint Co-ordinator of Rendezvous of Victory, a grassroots organisation that promotes education and understanding of the legacies of enslavement and who has for the last few years pressurised the government into taking the issue seriously. Read More >>

New law to be run up the flagpole

Little did they realise it at the time, but the thousands of people who draped England flags from their homes during the World Cup were breaking the law, an anomaly the government has now pledged to address.

Under current planning regulations, it is illegal to fly any national flag without permission from the local council, unless it is hung on "a single vertical flagstaff".

As part of a shake-up of planning rules connected to advertising, the government is issuing new advice to councils allowing any national flag to be flown without permission, however it is displayed.

Read more >>

The Shameful Slave Trade

Britain's first research unit into slavery was opened yesterday in Hull, the home of William Wilberforce, who led the campaign to abolish the trade.

The Wilberforce Institute, at Hull University, will research the history of slavery, including the collaboration of some Africans with the traders, up to today's traffic of women for the sex trade. Its first patron is the Nobel peace laureate and archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu.

The unit was opened by the president of Ghana, John Agyekum Kufuor, ahead of next year's bicentenary celebrations of the legal emancipation of slaves in Britain.

Other items:

• Hardship & Sorrow - The Slave Trade
• The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
• The Slave Trade - Timeline
• Mariner's Museum - Captive Passage
• Slave Movement in the 18th & 19th Century

The Atlantic slave trade (Atlantic slave trading) was the purchase and transport of Africans into bondage and servitude in the New World. It is sometimes called the Maafa by African and African-American scholars, meaning holocaust or great disaster in kiSwahili.

The slaves were one element of a three-part economic cycle—the Triangular Trade and its infamous Middle Passage—which ultimately involved four continents, four centuries and the lives and fortunes of millions of people. Research published in 2006 reports the earliest known presence of African slaves in the New World.

A burial ground in Campeche, Mexico suggests slaves had been brought there not long after Hernán Cortés completed the subjugation of Mexico. Contemporary historians estimate that some 10 to 12 million individuals were taken from Africa to Europe, North, Central, the Caribbean Islands and South America by European colonial/imperialist powers.

"Racism doesn't matter" say judges

Judges have ruled that victims of racism cannot defend themselves no matter how serious the abuse.

The bizarre Appeal Court judgement came in an today in the case of Farouq Kamara, who was jailed for 13 years last August after trying to protect his family against a racist attack.

The father-of-six and his family suffering six years of horrific race attacks in the Hampshire village of Stubbington, near Portsmouth.
Mr Kamara, 46, has always insisted that he was going to use the Rossi 22 calibre handgun to commit suicide after racist locals turned his life into a living hell.

But when village youths launched yet another violent attack on his wife and children last March the Manchester-born IT expert threatened to kill the yobs.
Yet Mr Kamara did not brandished the pistol in public, let alone pulled the trigger, and had never physically assaulted anyone.
His family suffering hundreds of race attacks since moving to the village and claim they were offered little protection from the police.

The devout Muslim pleaded guilty to charges of possessing an illegal firearm and ammunition, which was discovered under a tree, and he was sentenced to 13 years, with an order that he serve a minimum of five years.

Judge Hooton, sentencing him at Winchester Crown Court last August, did not made any reference to the campaign of racial abuse when sentencing his client. But today (29 June) at the Appeal Court, Lord Justice Scott Baker and Justice Mitting denied Mr Kamara permission to appeal against his sentence.

The judges rejected claims that the jail term was too harsh because the 'exceptional circumstances' of race attacks had not been taken into account.
Read the full article >>

South Africa marks Uprising

all credits - USA Today

President Thabo Mbeki led hundreds of South Africans through the streets of this black township on Friday, retracing the steps of student protesters who galvanized the anti-apartheid struggle 30 years ago.

The marchers paused at 9 a.m. for a moment of silence to remember Hector Pieterson, a 13-year-old killed by police who shot at the unarmed demonstrators. His death has come to symbolize the sacrifices of young people in the fight for South Africa's democracy and freedom.

More than 500 young people were estimated killed in the Soweto Uprising and its bloody aftermath. Thousands of others disappeared into detention or fled the country to join the guerrilla fight, forever changing the face of the anti-apartheid struggle.

The uprising started as a student protest against being taught in Afrikaans, the language of white oppressors, which few among the black majority could understand. Police responded with brutal force, and news of the killings and the riots they unleashed across the country awakened the world to the government's violence.

"Hector would be 42 now - he died for the nation, and today he is part of history."

Dorothy Molefi lost her son 30 years ago. He was Hector Peterson, shot by a police bullet on 16 June 1976, becoming the first victim of the student uprising against apartheid. On Friday morning, Mrs Molefi joined President Thabo Mbeki and other officials in laying wreaths at the monument in Orlando West, Soweto, to her son and others who died in the uprising.

"I'm so glad about what's happening today, 30 years later," she told the BBC News website. She reflected on the changes that have come about since the start of democracy in South Africa: "Single mothers are given houses - our children are mixed with whites in the schools."

'Celebrate'

For the younger people who gathered around the monument, part of the excitement of the moment was having a public holiday - Youth Day, as 16 June now is - all of their own. Nonkululeku Mnikati, 23, said she was there "to celebrate freedom - to celebrate being recognised as the youth of South Africa."

On the generation of 1976 she said: "We look up to them, what they did was great. But sometimes it's like looking at a movie, it's hard to believe what happened was real. "So it's good to see Hector Peterson's mother here, because that helps us to know it was real."

The day's events had begun in a frosty dawn several kilometres away, outside the Morris Isaacson High School, from where the first group of teenage demonstrators had set out 30 years ago, led by a student called Tsietsi Mashinini.
After the march, Tsietsi went into hiding and later died in mysterious circumstances in Guinea. His mother, Nomkitha, was there in a wheelchair to help unveil a monument in the middle of a newly created memorial park opposite the school.

"We thought it would just be a few months of struggle - unfortunately it didn't work out like that," she reflected.

Peanuts

At the monument, another veteran of '76 who had joined the ANC's liberation army explained its significance to a group of younger people. "I wanted to be a doctor, but I ended up carrying an AK-47 and now I work for the police. The struggle changed me." Gilo Maguma, 40, was also involved in the protests, and is now unemployed.
"We are not liberated yet - we are still confined to 13% of the country," he said in reference to the fact that white people still own most of South Africa's land. Black people earn peanuts."
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