Contemporary Legacies

The legacies of racial slavery and colonization continue to shape our contemporary societies. Anti-Black racism structures Black life. The shadows of colonialism haunt many African and Caribbean countries. The statistics about Black life show how, in various aspects of human living – health, education and access to economic and social rights – Black people remain dominated.

Mural painting of the Clothilda slave ship in Africatown. The Africatown community, outside of Mobile (Alabama), was formed by the descendants of enslaved people on the Clothilda, the last known U.S. slave ship to bring captives from Africa to the United States in 1860. The Atlantic slave trade was banned in the United States in 1808.