152. Restorative Justice: The Guardian’s Legacies of Enslavement Programme

The Scott Trust is the parent company that owns The Guardian Media Group. In 2023, the Trust launched their ‘Legacies of Enslavement Programme’, formed to acknowledge that the founder of the Manchester Guardian, John Edward Taylor, and his backers profited from transatlantic enslavement through their business interests in cotton and sugar. Among them was Sir George Philips, co-owner of the Success plantation in Hanover, Jamaica. Links were also identified between Taylor’s family business and plantations in the Gullah Geechee region of the US Sea Islands.

In response to the findings, the Scott Trust is funding a meaningful long-term programme of awareness-raising and restorative justice. Their goals are to:

• address their founders’ links to slavery in the US, and Sir George Philips’ role as an enslaver of people in Jamaica, through significant partnerships and programmes developed with local and national communities and organisations.
• support impactful initiatives to improve diversity in the news media sector, including within the Guardian.
• raise awareness of our findings, and of Manchester’s and Britain’s involvement with transatlantic slavery, and of the trade in enslaved Africans more broadly.

To discuss the programme and get into wider conversations about how we, as progressive, reckon with the legacy of Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, we were joined by:

• Clive Lewis – Member of Parliament for Norwich South & guest host of the episode
• Ebony Riddell Bamber – Programme Director of the Legacies of Enslavement Programme. Ebony has more than 20 years’ experience in social justice policy and advocacy, with expertise across human rights, gender-based violence and community engagement. She has held senior roles in global advocacy coalitions, international NGOs such as Care International and Save the Children, and the UK public sector.
• Maya Wolfe-Robinson – Assistant Editor at The Guardian. Maya is the editorial lead for the Legacies of Enslavement programme, which include the Cotton Capital series and the Long Wave newsletter. A Guardian journalist since 2010, she was previously a correspondent covering the north of England and was an editor on the opinion desk.