Legacies of Slavery - Council for World Mission

For several years now, Black communities of the Caribbean, UK and the US have called for the legacies of the Transatlantic slave trade to be addressed, and it has been recognised by the UN.

CWM’s Legacies of Slavery (LOS) project addresses the roots of racialised inequalities and injustices today and owning that they lie in part in the rhetoric, praxis and fund raising of mission societies like CWM’s forebear London Missionary Society. LMS, with others, developed and perpetuated a racist colonial anthropology with which it recruited, made money and occupied White and Black minds, lands and bodies, dressing in in Christian vision.

Through four LOS hearings based in several countries in 2017 and 2018, stories of anguish during the transatlantic slave trade were both heard and acknowledged, with follow up recommendations submitted to the CWM Board that outline commitment towards financial reparation, among other initiatives.

CWM continues to pursue the legacies project work, following the Board’s commitment to address our complicity through acts of repentance and reparation. The work focuses on these general areas:

Strategising and advocating the long-term scope of this work with the CWM Board and with member churches
Continuing scrutiny of the CWM archive
Critiquing Whiteness
Promoting Black critique
Extending and connecting the legacies work with regions beyond the geography of the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade

Work in progress:

CWM Act of Repentance and Apology on 23 Aug 2021

The Board has set this date for CWM’s act of repentance and apology. It will be a virtual event hosted on-line by CWM and led by the Board of Directors. In this we aim to confess the legacies of slavery in our life and begin the process of sending CWM to being an organization committed to reparation and anti-racist action. It will be a moment in which CWM speaks for itself, not its members, but calls on its members to bear witness to the same need for self-transformation if we are to enable life to flourish in a world where race continues to divide and oppress. It will also enable CWM to press for similar action by other mission organisations and especially the governments of the former and current colonial powers.