Akala

BAFTA and MOBO award-winning hip-hop artist Akala will deliver this year’s prestigious Slavery Remembrance Lecture at Albert Dock.

Akala, who is also a writer, poet and historian, will be speaking as part of National Museums Liverpool’s three day commemorations for the city’s 17th annual Slavery Remembrance Day on 22 August.

Akala’s lecture will concentrate on the subject of the Haitian Revolution, which directly links to the original catalyst for marking Slavery Remembrance Day on 23 August.

The uprising of enslaved Africans on the island of Saint Domingue (modern Haiti and the Dominican Republic) which began on 23 August 1791, was crucial in the fight against transatlantic slavery.

Speaking on the announcement, Akala, who performed at this year’s Africa Oyé festival in Sefton Park, says: “Slavery is an ancient institution that sadly continues until this very day.

“The racialized chattel enslavement of Africans in the Americas may well have been the most brutal, cruel and large scale human traffic ever to have taken place.

“The role of the Haitian revolution in breaking the back of transatlantic slavery has often been downplayed by mainstream historians but fortunately that silly trend seems to be lessening these days and we can all more fully appreciate this complicated but unique chapter in the human story.”