This week we are revisiting our Cotton Capital series that originally ran in April 2023. Today in Focus will be back with new episodes on Tuesday 29 August.
In the final episode of the series, the Cotton Capital editor and Guardian journalist Maya Wolfe-Robinson looks at the subject of reparations.
She talks to the Guardian editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, and Joseph Harker, the senior editor for diversity and development, about the findings that link the Guardian founder, John Edward Taylor, and his financial backers to transatlantic slavery and how the Guardian has responded to those revelations. The Scott Trust said it expected to invest more than £10m, with millions dedicated specifically to descendant communities. It also plans to increase the scope of Guardian reporting with a number of new correspondents, expand its journalism training bursary scheme and work on external partnership and community programmes. Research into the Guardian’s links to transatlantic slavery will continue.
Maya also talks to Barbara Makeda Blake-Hannah, a leading figure in the reparations movement, in Kingston. After becoming the first Black woman to present on British television in 1968, Blake-Hannah dedicated her life to campaigning for social justice for African descendants of transatlantic slavery. And she hears from Laleta Davis-Mattis, chair of Jamaica’s national council on reparations, which advises the government on the path towards reparatory justice. Davis-Mattis also represents the country on the wider regional Caricom council.
This podcast is episode six in a six-part series for the Cotton Capital project, which is looking at the Guardian’s links to transatlantic slavery and the legacies of that history. It takes listeners from Manchester to Jamaica, the US, Nigeria and Brazil and back to the UK.
Host: Maya Wolfe-Robinson
Guests: Joseph Harker, Katharine Viner, Barbara Makeda Blake-Hannah, Laleta Davis–Mattis
Series producer: Courtney Yusuf
Producer: Silas Gray
Consultant executive producer: Colin Stone
Historical consultant: Dr Keston Perry
Original music: Melo-Zed
Sound design: Max Sanderson
Development series producer: Tej Adeleye
Development producers: Weyland McKenzie-Witter and Fatuma Khaireh
Commissioning editors: Nicole Jackson and Maya Wolfe-Robinson
With thanks to: Ray Kerr, Reverend Bowen, Dr Emory Campbell, Patt Gunn, Iya Nyeuza Cruz, Esther Figueroa, Esther Stanford-Xosei, Dr Leon Sealey–Huggins
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