National Museums Liverpool have announced the appointment of Richard Benjamin to the position of Head of International Slavery Museum, due to open in 2007, the bicentenary of the abolition of the British Slave Trade.

David Fleming, Director of National Museums Liverpool, said ‘The combination of Richard’s academic background, his ongoing links with the community and his engaging inter-personal skills made him a great prospect for this challenging position.’

Richard Benjamin, Head of International Slavery Museum, said of his appointment ‘I am extremely proud to be given the opportunity of heading this world class museum and research centre which looks at both the historical and contemporary aspects of slavery.  I aim to make the museum a valuable resource for the local community, as well as visitors from elsewhere, which not only acts as an instrument of education but as a tool of social change to challenge many of the misconceptions generally held towards the subject of slavery and its legacy.’

To commemorate the bicentenary year National Museums Liverpool is creating a new  International Slavery Museum in Liverpool, which will build on the groundbreaking Transatlantic Slavery Gallery in the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool, opened by Dr Maya Angelou in 1994.

The galleries of the museum will open on Slavery Remembrance Day 2007 (23 August) a day that commemorates  an uprising of the enslaved Africans on the island of St Domingo (modern Haiti and the Dominican Republic) in 1791. Designated by UNESCO, the date was chosen as a reminder that enslaved Africans were the main agents of their own liberation.

Liverpool was once Europe’s capital of the transatlantic slave trade in the late 18th Century.