Dear Andy Burnham: the full story of enslavement has to move beyond comforting stories

The prime minister’s focus on white abolitionists and working-class solidarity diminishes the true scale of Manchester’s reliance on the slavery economy In May 1767, a notice was placed in the Manchester Mercury for “Any Gentleman, or Lady, wanting to purchase a Black Boy, 12 years of age” to inquire on Market Street, at the site of today’s Uniqlo clothes shop. After 15 years of painstaking work through the scattered fragments that recorded and pointed to Manchester’s enslaving history, I still don’t think I have come to terms with my moment of discovery, a few months ago, of those few words captured in black and white. The sale of a human being, a child, on our busiest shopping street. Continue reading...