by Larry Neild
LIVERPOOL, Britain, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Tribal chiefs stood on the banks of the famous River Mersey here on Tuesday as Liverpool led commemorations to mark UNESCO's International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition.
Dressed in traditional costumes, they cast flowers onto the river where, in the 1700s, ships left Liverpool for estimated 5,000 voyages that would transport around 1.5 million slaves from Africa to the Americas.
National Museums Liverpool, who run the International Slavery Museum on the city's waterfront, has organized three days of events to mark the city's links with the slave trade.
A public libation, an ancient spiritual ceremony which involves an offering to commemorate and pay tribute to those affected by slavery, was the main event. Hundreds gathered, watched by tourists milling around the restored dockland area. Many people from various ethnic communities also cast flowers onto the river.
Earlier, a Walk of Remembrance took place through downtown Liverpool to honor and remember ancestors who, deprived of their liberty, enabled the port of Liverpool to thrive.
The procession, led by an African band, passed the site of the historic old dock where slaver ships once moored to prepare for journeys to transport their human cargoes.
Dr. Richard Benjamin, head of the International Slavery Museum, said: "Slavery Remembrance Day is a vital event not only for the International Slavery Museum but for Liverpool and the country as a whole. It not only commemorates the lives and deaths of millions of Africans enslaved during the period of the transatlantic slave trade, but recognizes their resilience and resistance too."
"We also live with the legacies of transatlantic slavery and enslavement, such as racism and discrimination and ongoing inequalities, injustices and exploitation and that is why the International Slavery Museum is a campaigning museum - promoting social justice through its work."
In 1999, Liverpool became one of the first cities in the world to formally and unreservedly apologize for its part in the slave trade and the continual effect of slavery on Liverpool's black communities. Enditem
