How the memorial will look

A MEMORIAL to victims of the African slave trade is to become a reality – more than 10 years after a school teacher launched a campaign to bring it to Hyde Park.

The drive to have a memorial built for all those who were enslaved, and their descendants, was started by volunteers including Oku Ekpenyon in 2005.

The process was hit with years of delays despite a site being earmarked within the park’s prestigious rose garden.

But the statue plans were finally approved by a Westminster Council planning committee on Tuesday and Ms Ekpenyon, who lives in Westminster, said she was “thrilled” with the result.

She told West End Extra: “I am a former head of history in a London secondary school. Many of my pupils were black. I used to take them out on educational visits so they could see all sorts of things relating to history, but one actually said, ‘where is our history?’

“In terms of public recognition, there isn’t anything. There are memorials to a host of other things, but not to the enslaved labour that helped create this country.”

She said there was nowhere she could take them to show that the “involuntary contribution of their ancestors” was recognised.

The 14ft monument, designed by sculptor Les Johnson will feature bronze figures on a circular plinth depicting slavery victims and people breaking free from their shackles.

The artist has said his aim was to make the sculpture “timeless”.

Sitting within a floral garden, complete with new planting, it hopes to inform future generations of this period of history.

Ms Ekpenyon believes the project took a long time to come to fruition partly because the particular subject matter was an “uncomfortable truth”.

“The wealth created by enslaved labour came back to this country and in part helped to fund the industrial revolution that in turn put the Great into Great Britain,” she said.

“Although it is not visibly apparent there is a great debt owed to enforced labour. Britain still benefits from that legacy today – but there is no memorial in this country to give it recognition. That is one of the reasons why this is important.”

The memorial was waved through unanimously by the planning committee, despite being in a “saturation zone” for statues. New ones are only allowed for “an exceptionally good reason”.

Project architect Tony Dyson said that “all the boxes have been ticked at long last”.

To find out more and to donate to the ongoing fundraising campaign see www.memorial2007.org.uk