To the people who produced it nearly quarter of a century ago, it was just another Bristol Evening Post front page.

But the effect of that page was so powerful that it offended and ostracised a large section of the city’s community. So much so, that it continues to do so.

Even now, if you go to St Pauls or Easton and ask about the Bristol Post, it won’t be long before someone mentions the Faces of Evil front page of Wednesday, April 17, 1996.

Many of them can still see its simple design in their mind’s eye. Alongside that now-notorious headline stared back 16 police pictures of black men jailed for dealing in crack cocaine.

I don’t blame the journalists who conceived it. I wasn’t the editor then but - if I had been - I’m sure I would have published the page, too.

But it was a huge mistake. That one image essentially destroyed what little credibility and trust the Post had within Bristol’s African and Afro-Caribbean community.

So, today, I want to apologise for that page. I want to say sorry for the hurt it caused - and continues to cause - to an entire community of my city.

Moreover, I want to try to make amends for it.

Why apologise?

Now, I’m sure there are many people reading this who will be wondering why I’m saying sorry. Weren’t these men crack dealers? Pedlars of evil?

Yes, they were. But the problem was one of context.

The Evening Post - as it was called then - was already disconnected from the city’s black communities. It was another Bristol institution that the people in those communities didn’t feel was for them. They were already wary of telling the Post about their news or their successes. They already had a suspicion that the paper wrote about black people only when they committed crime.

The Faces of Evil front page, with its black faces ranged in rows like slaves held in cages, cemented that view.

The irony is that none of those perceptions were true. The Post of 1996 had absolutely no agenda to exclude anyone. But it also wasn’t good at being inclusive and, thanks to that page, the perception became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Since the page’s publication, the Post has indeed become detached from a significant section of the city’s population, many of whom still genuinely believe that black people are not welcome within its pages - or its staff.

When I became editor 12 years ago, I was told about the page as a reason why some people didn’t interact with us or read the paper. I thought the problem was historic. But I’ve come to realise that it’s as real now as it was in 1996.

I have to change that regrettable situation. I am proud to lead my hometown paper and I want the Post to properly reflect and represent the entire city.

That is why I am apologising for the page today, as well as detailing how I want to make amends for it.

What about the reaction?

Of course, I am only too well aware of how this will go down with some of some of the more vociferous contributors to the bristolpost.co.uk comments section.

I await their inevitable hate. They will probably call me a snowflake - the word adopted by right-wingers when they want to belittle millennial entitlement. Or a bleeding-heart liberal who’s been got at by the politically correct brigade.

I am neither. If only I was a millennial - I’d be at least 20 years younger. And I am certainly not a liberal. Dealing with politics for 30 years has made me cynical of any political stance.

In fact, I’m actually like many of the people who read the Post in print and online. I’m a mongrel, working-class Bristolian, born in Easton and bred on the wrong side of the tracks in south Bristol.

I want my city’s institutions to represent everyone in the city because there is still a perception that they don’t. As I’m lucky enough to run one of them, I can at least start with this one.

Of course, the other thing the commenters will tell me to do is to move on, to stop dwelling on the past. And that is exactly what I want to do. Only not in the way they would prefer, which is by not talking about it.

How can we change perceptions?

The change starts with this apology. I’m taking positive action and talking to people in the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) community - sometimes privately, sometimes publicly - in order to try to address their perceptions and to try to reset the relationship. I am arranging for more black writers to contribute to the Post. And I’m giving opportunities to BAME youngsters who want experience of journalism. I’m an editor who gives as many young people as I can the opportunity to spend time in the Post newsroom. Those who apply are almost always white.

That’s no surprise in a city which, according to a recent Runnymede report, has been classified as the most segregated in the UK.

Why apologise now?

Because I sense a significant shift, a rising empathy in Bristol towards its BAME communities (who represent one in five Bristolians) and their disconnection from the rest of the city and its opportunities. Our elected mayor Marvin Rees is diverting funds to previously neglected areas and trying to ensure that BAME voices are heard in Bristol’s decision-making. The Colston Hall is facing up to the realisation that its name is offensive.

There is a rising tide of change coming and I want the Post - which was part of the problem - to be at the forefront of the solution.

We have joined with Roger Griffith of Ujima Radio and Tom Morris of the Bristol Old Vic to instigate a Year of Change in the city.

The idea was conceived by Roger, who leads the community radio station Ujima. He is passionate about campaigning for equal rights for the black community. But he is also measured and pragmatic - and particularly fixated on not portraying black people as victims.

Alongside Roger, Tom Morris and Emma Stenning at the Old Vic are passionate that the theatre, which will fully re-open this autumn, does so as a resource for the whole city. Not just as a place of world-class entertainment and creative opportunity but, as great theatres have always been, a place where the city can gather to debate and reflect on the significant issues of our day.

I know that, to many Bristol ears, this will all sound hugely optimistic, naive even. But that is the biggest problem with our city. At its worst, it is a disparate, divided place populated by a cynical citizenry who often prefer not to face up to its issues.

How can we deal with the city’s divides?

How can we move on from issues like the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade or the memory of Edward Colston?

We think the best way to answer those questions is to encourage the whole city to talk about them. Thanks to the city’s divisions, the Bristolians who remain affected by the transatlantic slave trade never speak to the Bristolians who can’t understand why.

The Bristol Post, Ujima and the Bristol Old Vic want to address that by organising a series of City Conversations to bring together the differing views in this debate. There are BAME Bristolians who remain affected by living in a city in which many of the buildings are a constant reminder of the oppression of their ancestors. There are white Bristolians who have no sense of this injustice and cannot see the point in discussing it. These opposing sides have never heard each other speak. For the first time, they will. All races. All backgrounds. All ages.

The conversations will take place across the city, with a final one at the Old Vic.

The first meeting to take place in the week beginning April 16 – exactly 21 years after the publication of Faces of Evil. We will publish details of how to attend soon.

The meetings will be mediated and safe. They will not be panel-led. Everyone present will have an opportunity to speak. We will welcome any individual or organisation offering to help us hold or promote these events. And the point of them will be to find a way to commemorate Bristol’s role in the transatlantic slave trade.

So that our city can agree, find closure and move on. As one. Perhaps for the first time ever.