Thursday 19 June 2008

19 June 1865

Photo by G@ttoGiallo. Creative Commons Licence.

A blog which explores the differences between British and American English, and a photo blog by someone who lives in Paris, don't appear to have much in common. And they don't.

But it was on Britishspeak that I first learnt that 19 June 1865 is the day that slaves in the USA were freed, and it was today that I found the photo above, taken by G@ttoGiallo at the Calabar Museum in Nigeria.

Just looking at that board gives some idea of the enormity of the crime. Those numbers are all people. And we must not forget that, although it takes different forms, slavery and human trafficking still exist in the world today.

7 comments:

  1. Umm, was it 1865 or 1965?

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  2. Ooops, thanks Solomon! But it was correct in the title. Now correct in the post too :)

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  3. Wow, that aspect of global history is just a sad reflection of the worst parts of human nature.

    Thanks for the heads up on this.

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  4. ... and the Brits tend to forget that they were the "owners" of many of these slaves. I still feel so appalled by it all.

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  5. wow! thank you for giving me something to ponder and reflect upon today.

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  6. Hello, A, thanks for stopping by. Very powerful message in this photo. One of the aims of my mission to GB is to go to the Docks Museum in Liverpool, as I understand that was one of the stopovers in the slave trade.

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  7. Very interesting post - heart wrenching, sad... but history and interesting nonetheless.

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