Resources

If you would like to explore the issues raised and discussed on this website, this page offers ideas and links for further reading and study. Suggestions for other resources to include welcome. We are pleased to now include as major new resources, the documentary After the Flood and the MJR Exhibition.
​Please note that the issues of colonial slavery and industrial exploitation and their legacies have been subject to numerous interpretations and that inclusion here of third party material does not denote agreement by MJR with views expressed.

AFTER THE FLOOD: THE CHURCH, SLAVERY AND RECONCILIATION
MJR presents a new 67 minute feature documentary. Click here for more details.
​Now available, a  workbook for use with the film for individual or small group further study. More details here.

EXHIBITION
The MJR Exhibition on the legacy of colonial slavery is available for free hire. Click here for more details.

TALKS & PODCASTS
From Compliance to Disruption – practical racial awareness for church leaders. An MJR session on 25 May 2021. More info and downloads here.
‘Faith in Black Lives Matter’ – 3 talks from the online conference held by Faith Network 4 Manchester, November 2020. 

  • Two Pandemics – health and race with Faye Bruce of CAHN and Dr Steve Taylor (73:34)
  • Church Complicity – Dr Joe Aldred, Ben Tarbuck, Prof Robert Beckford (77:15)
  • Generating Justice – racial justice for young people. Gabriel Oyediwura, Christie Spurling OBE, Beatrice Smith (78:37)

BLOGS
Out of Many, One People – Rev John Root. A weekly blog to encourage and develop the ministry of multi-ethnic churches.

BOOKS (a small selection)

  • Shades of Black: The Origins of Colour Consciousness in the Caribbean – a new book looking at how colour consciousness in the Caribbean has affected immigrants, and issues of race, in Britain​. Clifford Hill, Alton Bell, Nigel Pocock. Available here.
  • Free At Last: Clifford Hill. Available from Amazon.
  • Breaking the Chains of Mental Slavery: Alton Bell. Available from Amazon.
  • Speaking the Unspeakable – Who cares about the working classes?: Derek Purnell. Available from Urban Presence.
  • Sugar: The World Corrupted: From Slavery to Obesity: James Walvin. Available from Amazon.
  • The Zong: A Massacre, the Law and the end of Slavery: James Walvin. Available from Amazon.
  • We Need To Talk About Race: Ben Lindsay. Available widely including here. Also a four part home group study course.
  • Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire: Akala. Available widely including at Waterstones.
  • Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging: Afua Hirsch. Available widely including Amazon.
  • Thinking Outside the Box: On Race, Faith and Life: Dr Joe Aldred. Available on Amazon.
  • God Is Not a White Man: And Other Revelations: Chine McDonald. Available widely including Amazon.

ARTICLES & REPORTS
“Black Theology: an introduction” by Anthony Reddie. Theos, August 2020.
“Whiteness is an invented concept that has been used as a tool of oppression” by Meghan Tinsley. July 2022. Whiteness is a modern, colonial invention. It was devised in the 17th century and used to provide the logic for genocide and slavery.
“The Bible and Race” by Timothy Keller. The first in a series of four articles on justice and race by Timothy Keller that includes: “The Sin of Racism”, A Biblical Critique of Secular Justice and Critical Theory and “Justice in the Bible”.
“The invention of whiteness: the long history of a dangerous idea” by Robert P. Baird. The Guardian, April 2021. Before the 17th century, people did not think of themselves as belonging to something called the white race. But once the idea was invented, it quickly began to reshape the modern world.
“Difficult histories: Christian memory and historic injustice” by John Coffey. December 2020.
“From Kelso Cochrane to Brexit – Is Racism Over?” by ex-MJR trustee Dr Joe Alfred, May 2019.
“Racism, the Brexit, and What Freedom Really Means” by Cord J. Whittaker, July 2016.
“Brexit London: The past, present and future of racism in the capital” by Malcolm James, October 2016
“Can the legacy of trauma be passed down the generations?” A March 2019 BBC article on epigenetics featuring a study on POWs and their descendants.
“Talking Legacy” Presentations from September 2017 on further research undertaken into legacy factors in mental and physical health. “The Legacy of Slavery: Towards an Aetiology of African-Caribbean Mental Health” Nigel Pocock. 
​“Physical Health Research: The outcome of Africans Chattel Enslavement circa 1500-1800” Alton P Bell.
“The Causes and Effects of Mindsets: with special relevance to slave descendants in the Caribbean”, Nigel Pocock. Download pdf.
“A Voyage Around the Slave Ports of Britain”, Nigel Pocock. Download pdf.
“Making the Case for the Legacy of Slavery“, Dr Clifford Hill & MJR
“Proving Legacy”. MJR research papers into the effects of legacy on educational achievement, mental and physical health.
“Reading the Riots”. A study by the Guardian and LSE, supported by the Joseph Rountree Foundation. Download pdf.
“White Americans Owe A Huge Debt To Blacks”, Jenni Russell. The Times 18th Dec 2014. Download pdf.
“Contending with Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome and dealing with the ongoing legacy of African Chattel enslavement”, Alton Bell. Download pdf.
“The Legacy of Slavery“, Dr Clifford Hill.
“Slavery and Justice” Report by Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, Brown University, 2006. Includes a section on legacy. Download report pdf.
“Revealed: Industrial Revolution was powered by child slaves“, David Keys. The Independent, 2 August 2010.
“Bloodlines: Branding with another iron”. Dr Robert Beckford considers the psychological and social implications of an imposed identity.
“The bloody clash that changed Britain“. A concise account of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, which recently marked its 200th anniversary. “the most important political event ever to take place in Manchester.”
“Lest we remember – How Britain Buried its History of Slavery“. Gary Younge, The Guardian 23/3/2023.
“Our immigration laws have racism built into their DNA” Afua Hirsch, The Independent 25/4/2020.

WEBPAGES
The Black History Month website contains an informative section on the history of slavery.
Legacies of British Slave Ownership. Research by University College London tracing the impact of slave-ownership on the formation of modern Britain.
Breaking the Silence: learning about the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
The Dred Scott Foundation. The notorious Dred Scott ruling and aftermath moved America closer to Civil War.

OTHER
• The Black Light Course. An 8-week online course. Each session is led by an expert speaker on subjects such as the Black Presence in the Bible, Black Influence on Church History, White and Black: justice matters. Sessions are run in an interactive way including break-out rooms and time for questions to the speakers at the end. “Our vision is that the course will  bring clarity, courage and hope to people, and result in new forms of partnership between black and white Christians and churches in seeking the kingdom of God in our nation.” For more details of the course and prices click here
• Voices of Black Folk. A play by Khareem Jamal telling the stories of David Walker, Harriet Tubman and Joseph Boulogne. The play looks into the long fight for freedom from slavery, in particular at the role Africans played in the cause of abolition, a narrative sadly absent from the ‘official histories’.
Email for details of upcoming production or to enquire about bringing it to your area. Watch the trailer. Sample leaflet.
• Racial Healing: The Eagle’s Journey is a new compelling documentary from Reconciliation Eagles offering a hopeful way forward in the area of racial healing and reconciliation. Order the DVD here or download or stream here. View the trailer.

LINKS
• The National Archive: An overview of major primary sources for researchers into the British Slave Trade
• International Slavery Museum, Liverpool. Hear the untold stories of enslaved people and learn about historical and contemporary slavery.
​• The People’s History Museum, Manchester aims to engage, inspire and inform by showing ‘There have always been ideas worth fighting for’.
​• Discover Bristol and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Workshop and exhibition at M Shed in Bristol.
– Heirs of Slavery: A group of British people whose ancestors made significant wealth from more than two centuries of enslavement of Africans in the Americas.
• Memorial 2007 is a campaign to fund a statue in Hyde Park as a permanent memorial to remember the enslaved and their descendants ​(see photo).
• The Migration Museum, London explores how the movement of people to and from Britain has made us who we are – as individuals and as a nation.
• The 4Front Project is a member-led youth organisation empowering young people and communities to fight for justice, peace and freedom. Their Rest In Power page is dedicated to the memory of Black people who have been killed by state violence in the UK.
• New Manchester Walks lead guided walks around city centre landmarks. Slavery – a Plague on Society tells of the city’s role in colonial slavery and abolition. Other walks look at the 1819 Peterloo massacre, and Friedrich Engels – author of The Condition of the Working Class in England, written in Manchester.

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