News: Slavery and Memory

In keeping with the theme of this week's AMS conference, a few recent news stories about slavery and memory:

• Brown University has launched a commission "to consider how best to publicly acknowledge Brown's ties to the transatlantic slave trade and the history of slavery in Rhode Island"
• Historian J. R. Kerr-Ritchie asks, "Whatever Happened to August First?" - the traditional celebration of the British abolition of colonial slavery
  
• London mayor Ken Livingstone apologised for Britain's role in the slave trade at the first Annual Slavery Memorial Day ceremony last week, and called for the event to become UK wide next year