Memorial 2007 says it would be a ‘grave injustice not to build the memorial’ (Picture: Change.org)

A petition has been launched to build a memorial to commemorate the victims of the Transatlantic slave trade.

Memorial 2007, the charity behind the petition which has so far gathered nearly 40,000 signatures, says such a memorial would be the first of its kind in England.

The charity claims that it has already got planning permission for the memorial to be built in the Rose Gardens, Hyde Park.

However, it is demanding that the government fund the memorial, which it estimates will cost £4 million, before the planning permission expires on the 7th November.


Oku Ekpenyon, chair of the charity and who launched the petition told Metro.co.uk: ‘There is no memorial that specifically exists for the enslaved.’



She added that while memorials did exist to mark the abolition of slavery, there needed to be one for the ‘millions of victims who were taken into slavery in the greatest crime of humanity’.

Ms Ekpenyon said: ‘Earlier this month, Nicky Morgan launched a £250million fund for cultural investment.

The charity is asking why the government can fund other memorials and not one to remember the victims of slavery (Picture: iStock)

‘We’ve not seen any of that money.

‘No one has explained the criteria we need to get the money for this memorial’

Ms Ekpenyon said that she had been campaigning for more than 17 years for such a memorial, which would also serve as an educational centre and come with a garden site in Hyde Park.

She said that although the cost sounded like a lot of money, it would go towards maintaining the site, paying for the garden and setting up an educational centre as well as paying for the memorial itself and the cost of VAT.

Ms Ekpenyon added that she was inspired to fight for the memorial after an Afro-Caribbean student once asked her, ‘where’s our history.’

Memorial 2007 says it has planning permission to build such a memorial in Rose Garden, Hyde Park (Picture: iStockphoto)

The petition states: ‘Right now, there is no major memorial in England to commemorate the victims of the Transatlantic Slave trade.

‘These are millions of people who were brought over from Africa in ships and kept as slaves. Many of them built Britain, but were subjected to cruelty and forced into inhumane conditions.’

The petition calls on the ‘Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to fund the first dedicated major memorial to Enslaved Africans before the deadline’.

Memorial 2007 says the government has rejected previous demands to fund the memorial on the basis that it ‘does not have any dedicated funds available at present’.

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It goes on to list examples of government support for memorials for World War One, Commonwealth War Graves, the Holocaust, as well as the Srebrenica Genocide and asks the same for slave trade victims too.

The demand coincides with Black History month, and the petition warns that ‘to lose this opportunity to build a landmark would be a grave shame and a social injustice’.

An MHCLG spokesperson said: ‘We carefully consider each request for funding. Memorial 2007 approached MHCLG last year and the Department was unable to provide support at that time.



‘We are supportive of the aims of the monument and the organisation. The suffering caused by slavery and the slave trade are among the most dishonourable and abhorrent chapters in human history.’

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