It’s a celebration of the contribution and participation of our Black and Ethnic Minority Brothers and Sisters within the trade union movement, whilst not forgetting community involvement.

GMB have organised an event to take place in Chamberlain Square, Birmingham on Saturday 27^th October 2007 from 12noon to 6pm. The GMB would like to encourage children, schools and the wider community to celebrate the cultural and religious diversity of black and minority communities in British Society.

The GMB have organised entertainment for the day which will be hosted by the G-man, presenter from Newstyle Radio 98.7fm. This will include Martial Arts, Chinese Dragon Dancers, Street Dancing, and loads, loads more. There will also be various food stalls including stalls from the GMB, Thompsons Solicitors, TUC and many more.

If you would like to know more information please do not hesitate to contact us.

We look forward to seeing you there!

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For further information please contact Manjeet Singh GMB Organiser or Samantha Jones GMB Press Officer on 0121 550 4888.

Notes to editors:

History

2007 marks the 200^th Anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery in 1807. Slavery itself has existed since recorded history. The transatlantic trade began in the early 16^th century, when Europeans began to settle in America. They started to enslave Africans to work in their mines and plantations. As European settlements grew, so did the demand for slaves. Over the next 350 years, over 12 million Africans (no one knows exactly how many for sure) were transported to the Americas. They included men, women, and children. The British were not the first to get involved, but they came to dominate the trade. The first English slave trader was Sir John Hawkins, controller of the Queen’s Navy. From 1562-68, he made three voyages to Sierra Leone, taking hundreds of Africans across the Atlantic to sell to Spanish America. Britain was heavily involved from the mid 17^th century. By the Mid 18^th century, Britain had become the leading slaving nation.

Racism and Slavery

Slavery was and is closely bound up with racism, both a cause of it and an effect. At the start of the slave trade in the 1520s Europeans believed Africans were racially inferior, this is how they justified the inhuman conditions of the trade. Africans were kidnapped and captured, marched to the coast and sold to Europeans. From there, they were shipped to colonies in the Americans, in conditions of almost unimaginable cruelty.

The triangular trade route

The British Slave trade was a three-legged journey. British traders sailed to Africa with textiles, copperwares, iron, guns, and spirits to exchange for slaves. The second leg of the journey was the threaded ‘middle passage’ enslaved Africans were shipped in suffocating holds in voyages taking up to six weeks, to North America and the West Indies, where they were sold to work in the plantations. Traders then brought raw materials from the plantations – cotton, coffee, tobacco, and sugar to ship back to Europe.