News / A House Through Time
Rees: ‘This is not a debate about guilt’
Bristol’s role in the slave trade has once again been brought to national prominence thanks to the first episode of A House Through Time.
Bristol’s mayor Marvin Rees, a descendent of enslaved Africans and Europe’s first directly elected mayor of African heritage, praised the “powerful” programme, calling it “a must watch for anyone interested in the story of our city”.
10 Guinea Street in Redcliffe was funded by fortunes made from slave trading, with the man who built the house a prolific buyer and seller of people, and its first occupant also a slave trader.
is needed now More than ever
Later residents kept a slave called Thomas and offered “a handsome reward” for his return after he escaped the house in 1759.
Bristol mayor Marvin Rees (left) and Bristol-based historian David Olusoga were both named in a 2019 list of the top-100 most influential black Britons
Talking about the issues raised the day after A House Through Time was broadcast on BBC Two, Rees said: “I have had to be careful how we talk about this, not least because it might be misinterpreted or badly reported…
“The debate has not gone away. It’s just that some people don’t have to have this discussion. The debate around Bristol’s relationship to its past and how Bristol got to where it has gotten to is not something that has just popped up as a result of (A House Through Time) although David (Olusoga)’s programme brings it into the contemporary space fantastically well.
“We were doing this back in 2007 during the Abolition 200 year. And I warned then that the city wasn’t really well equipped to cope with that debate, and in many ways I was proved right.”
Rees added: “This is not a debate about guilt. This is a debate about historical fact and understanding. Understanding how history relates to today. And how we wouldn’t be where we were today if history didn’t happen in the way it happened. (The debate) needs to happen in a very mature way.
“I think David is one of those people who are so well positioned to help craft that debate. But it’s not just for black people to raise that debate. It’s for us to recognise that it’s part of our history.”
On the question of whether Bristol should have a memorial to mark its involvement in the slave trade, Rees said that “one of the biggest things we could do to deal with the legacy is to look at the inequalities in the city. Look at the inequalities in educational outcomes, in mental health outcomes, wider health outcomes and employment rates in Bristol.”
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Rees said: “Because the real legacy of the history of racial hierarchy is in the ongoing inequalities we face today. And in fact, many of the flagship institutions, let’s be frank, there isn’t one institution that’s free – be it journalism, be it politics, be it the legal sector, accountancy, finance, the cultural sector – that are much better at including the full diversity of Bristol amongst its paid ranks and those people who benefit from those sectors, and there’s an expression of that voice of the wider range of communities.
“I would like to see some contemporary justice delivered and that’s what we have pointed our efforts at with this administration…
“In the danger of misreporting, as a black man talking about the history of race, this isn’t an issue about racial hierarchy or racial injustice, it is inseparable from the issue of class hierarchy and class injustice that has happened, and is still playing itself out in Bristol today.”
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read more: A House Through Time to focus on Bristol’s slavery past
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