The International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

For over 400 years, more than 15 million men, women and children were the victims of the tragic transatlantic slave trade, one of the darkest chapters in human history.

Every year on 25 March, the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade offers the opportunity to honor and remember those who suffered and died at the hands of the brutal slavery system. The International Day also aims to raise awareness about the dangers of racism and prejudice today.

In order to more permanently honor the victims, a memorial has been erected at United Nations Headquarters in New York. The unveiling took place on 25 March 2015. The winning design for the memorial, The Ark of Return  by Rodney Leon, an American architect of Haitian descent, was selected through an international competition and announced in September 2013.

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Dr. Ruby Mae Chapman, Life’s Interruptions,  Co-Founder of Napolean & Ada Moton Chapman Institute, Folk Artist, Children’s Advocate, Scholar, Researcher and Writer

 

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Lest We Forget....

Mr. Carson turned his attention to slavery after describing photographs of poor immigrants displayed at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration. These new arrivals worked long hours, six or seven days a week, with little pay, he said. And before them, there were slaves.

“That’s what America is about, a land of dreams and opportunity,’’ he said. “There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less. But they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great-grandsons, great-granddaughters, might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land.”

Somebody is calling our names

Those local chiefs came to this auction house to sell captives to European clients.
Lonnie Bunch: A male in the late 18th century, early 19th century would go anywhere from $600 to $1,500, which is probably about, oh, $9,000 to $15,000 today.
Scott Pelley: This was incredibly lucrative.
Lonnie Bunch: In the years before the Civil War, the amount of money invested in slaves was more than the amount of money invested in railroads, banks, and businesses combined. This was the economic engine of Europe and the United States.
Lonnie Bunch: By the time you got here....
The enslaved marched from the auction down this ramp and on to the ships.
 Mozambique Island rises from the Indian Ocean, south of the equator. It was one of the points in what was called the Triangular Trade -- goods from Europe to Africa, slaves to the New World. And, cotton, gold and tobacco -- back to the old.
In the 1400s, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to trade in slaves and they became the largest, followed by the English, French, Spanish and Dutch. On Mozambique Island the Portuguese built a fortress that they called St. Sebastian for the Christian martyr who was captured, chained and murdered in Rome in the year 288. The irony of that name, was the only thing here the Portuguese failed to grasp.