Year 13 International Slavery Museum Trip
On 12 October, Year 13 History A-level students ventured to Liverpool on a trip to the International Slavery Museum to learn about the history of black people and their struggles in the past. We set off for our journey at 8:34am at New Street Station for a train to Liverpool Lime Street. Over the course of the one hour and fifty-minute journey on the train, some students took some time to read up on what we would be learning about in the coming hours, while others took the journey as an opportunity to study or simply rest. When we arrived at Liverpool, we set off on a fifteen-minute walk through the town centre to reach the museum. The town centre was quiet and fairly chilly as it was Thursday morning. Our walk through the town centre culminated at the museum, while seeing sights like the Royal Albert Dock during our walk.
Once we had reached the International Slavery Museum, the main part of our journey had begun. By 11am, we began a self-guided tour of the museum. For the next 45 minutes or so, we saw African American artifacts that carried substantial historical significance. During our self-guided tour, we were also able to watch an incredibly moving short video by one of the curators at the museum about how discrimination against black people and their ancestors impacted her and her self-identity. Following on from the self-guided tour was an hour long workshop, led by the same lady. We discussed the hardship that Africans felt throughout history on a global scale and had a conversation about how we imagine sufferers of discrimination during that time would have felt and how this generation would feel looking back. The workshop provided an interesting and different outlook on discrimination against people of African descent and allowed for an understanding of its impact on the society of today.
After the workshop had concluded, students had the opportunity to roam the town centre for some time while we waited for the train back. By 13:33pm, the train from Lime Street back to New Street had arrived, and the final two-hour journey commenced, and by 15:20, we reached Birmingham once again, putting an end to an eventful and insightful day trip to Liverpool.
Faizaan Mir (13EHA)
This Year 13 history trip was organised to allow us to gain an insight into the treatment and experience of Black people in the period of the Transatlantic slave trade, as well as a more developed understanding of the struggle for civil rights in the aftermath of abolition.
Our current course is about the struggle for civil rights in America, with one key topic being on the subject of African Americans. The content we learn in class already provides the context of what it was like to live at the time, with numbers and detailed descriptions describing the trauma and suffering. However, I believe the trip allowed those words and statistics in the textbook to come to life, to present themselves before us within the walls of the Museum. Various recordings and objects were seen throughout our experience, highlighting both the beauty of African culture, alongside the suppression it faced at the hands of the slave trade. An example of what we learnt, for example, was racial segregation, and this was explained in the detailed workshop from one of the museum’s employees, where we were shown various signs, stamps, and images where African Americans were treated inferior, once again bringing our lessons to life, as we saw the solid proof of one of many injustices in human history. Overall, the trip was a great experience for us students, helping us develop our learning outside of the classroom.
Rayyan Yaqub (13SS)
