Black Lives Matter then and now: Lancaster Black History Group and the politics of memory in the wake of new activism

Abstract

This chapter explores the redesign of a slavery-themed walk to incorporate emerging understandings of African agency in the ending of slavery. Unlike many Lancashire towns whose signature architecture is Victorian back-to-back terraces, Lancaster is known for its streets of Georgian houses built in the second half of the 18th century. Looking up at its rich stone buildings, it resembles Bath and it is this grandeur that attracts tourists and encourages a kind of cloying, voyeuristic promenade around the city that focuses on opulence and plenty. There is a dark side to both cities’ wealth, however, which was the direct consequence of their citizens’ involvement in the slavery business, as slave ship captains, slave merchants, plantation owners and dealers in plantation goods from the Americas. In both cities this history has been hidden, forgotten and often elided for generations while more famous port cities such as Liverpool have been foregrounded in debates about the importance of slavery to the development of modernity.