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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 31 October 2008

Garden memorial to enslaved Africans

• I READ with interest Angela Cobbinah’s feature (Buried in history: the writer who fought to end slave trade, October 17).
First, 2007 was the bicentenary of the parliamentary abolition of the slave trade not the abolition of the slave trade. The slave trade continued well after 1807 with British slave traders using flags of convenience on their ships.Second, I fought a hard three year-long campaign to get the Royal Mail to produce the commemorative stamps marking the bicentenary.
Third, the portrait shown in the article depicting Equiano has been disputed in recent years and thought not be him. However, the picture on the postage stamp is from the frontispiece of his autobiography and can be authenticated.
Despite all the celebrations and events to mark the bicentenary
last year, there is still no permanent lasting memorial to remember enslaved Africans and their descendants.
Memorial 2007 are seeking to rectify this and we have secured a site in Hyde Park for a memorial garden with a sculpture as its centrepiece.
In August the mayor publicly endorsed this project and he and I unveiled the maquette of the sculpture (detail left) at City Hall where it is on display until the December 1.
Construction of the project will begin when the necessary funding has been raised.
www.memorial2007. org.uk
OKU EKPENYON
W1

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld.
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