by James Ogunleye

Reverend James Jones, a leading Anglican cleric in the northeast England city of Liverpool, has apologized to Africans for the part played by Liverpool in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Rev. Jones, who also doubled as the Bishop of Liverpool Anglican Diocese, spoke June 26 during a visit to the Anglican community in southwest Nigeria.

"I always feel bad that Liver-pool, where I am the Bishop, was the slave depot. The worst thing to have happened to Africa is the slave trade. It is highly regretted that Liverpool was used as a slave depot. Over 500,000 Blacks (slaves) were carried to Virginia, United States, through Liverpool," the cleric said.

Rev. Jones� apology came on the heels of a similar apology offered by the Mayor of Liverpool at a recent civic parade, and it followed admission by Richard Foster, the city�s director of National Museums and Galleries, that Liverpool made its fortune on the backs of African slaves.

Mr. Foster, to the discomfort of many whites, had said: "Whether we (the whites) like it or not, the buying and selling of Africans was the cornerstone of Liverpool�s overseas trade from 1730 to 1807. More than a quarter of Liverpool-owned shipping tonnage was involved in the trade between 1750 and 1775."

He went on: "One of the exhibits in the Maritime Museum�s striking new gallery on trans-Atlantic slavery is a silver epergne presented in 1792 to James Penny, a Liverpool merchant in the slave trade, by a grateful town council in recognition of his fight against the abolitionists. It is important for the future that the city is able to confront its past with confidence and without rancour."

Meanwhile, the British government June 20 had begun consultation on a plan to establish a national Memorial Day in honor of millions of Black people who perished during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The Race Relations Forum (RRF), the government�s outfit spearheading the consultation process, is chaired by the Home Secretary Jack Straw, and will report to Prime Minister Tony Blair in October�to coincide with Black History Month.

Already some members of the RRF have welcomed the idea and expressed their willingness to serve on the memorial committee. "I for one am very keen to serve on a sub-committee," said Zerbanoo Gifford, adding that, "Britain has to accept what has happened historically�that the wealth of this country came from the work of slaves in the West Indies. If people (the British public) knew this then they might be a bit more appreciative of where we all are coming from."

She went on: "It is very important to commemorate this as a day, not just for history but also because there are 100 million children still in bonded labor around the world. It would reassert Britain�s commitment to that fight."

Lincoln Crawford, chair of the memorial committee, said: "We know that the Prime Minister is very keen to have something like this set, so this is a very important task and I am proud to have been asked to chair the committee."

Prime Minister Blair has been under pressure from the Black rights campaigners since he announced a decision to hold a Holocaust Memorial Day for Jews. New Nation, a Black weekly, in a highly publicized letter exposed the government�s hypocrisy on the issue and asked the Prime Minister to do the same for Black Britons.

The paper wrote: "Without getting into a pointless debate about the relative evils of the two atrocities, we would like to point out that we believe the trans-Atlantic slave trade has been the most graphic example of man�s inhumanity to man the planet has ever seen."

It chided Britain�s "refusal to accept that our progress as a nation was made via a system that robbed (Black) people of their rights and set in place a racial hierarchy that has scarred (Black) peoples� lives ever since."