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Culture Minister David Lammy announces £500,000 capital grant for the new International Slavery Museum - being developed by National Museums Liverpool.

The International Slavery Museum (ISM) will replace the current - and groundbreaking - Transatlantic Slavery Gallery in the Merseyside Maritime Museum. The Museum will play a key role in this year's commemoration of the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire. The ISM is being developed in two stages, the first of which is due to open on 23 August - the same day as UNESCO's 'International Slavery day'.

Culture Miniater David Lammy (pictured, right © Crown Copyright 2007) said: "It is right that we help National Museums Liverpool develop the new International Slavery Museum. It will provide a legacy to last way beyond this year's bicentenary. This year provides the perfect opportunity for the ISM to take its stories to a new generation of visitors to the museum in this fantastic city. And I hope people will be encouraged to remember those who suffered as a result of the slave trade, and to celebrate the efforts of all those who struggled for its abolition. I look forward to the opening on the 23 August."

Human Bondage

David Fleming, Director of National Museums Liverpool, said: "The opening of the International Slavery Museum will be the pinnacle of Britain's bicentenary year. This will be a magnificent new national institution and a worthy legacy of 2007 not just for Liverpool but for the nation. We are immensely grateful to Government, and to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, for their farsightedness in backing this project so generously. The museum will make a major contribution to global debates about human rights."

Liverpool was once Europe's capital of the transatlantic slave trade in the late 18th Century. It's place at the apex of this 'slave triangle' meant the city grew rich at that time on the profits of trading in enslaved people. It is therefore fitting that this subject should be marked and explored in the city.

The Department for Communities and Local Government is responsible for the Government's plans to mark the Bicentenary, which will focus on two dates: 25 March (the anniversary of the signing of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act) and 23 August (UNESCO day for the remembrance of slavery and its abolition).

Events will be taking place across England and Wales to celebrate the Bicentenary at national and local museums, galleries, and other arts and cultural venues. In addition faith groups and grassroots organisations will host a series of events and exhibitions to mark the Bicentenary. Local and central government will be playing their part too.

Transatlantic

The museum galleries will feature new dynamic and thought-provoking displays about the story of the transatlantic slave trade. Crucially, it will include new displays about the legacy of transatlantic slavery and will address issues such as freedom, identity, human rights, reparation claims, racial discrimination and cultural change.

This latest funding builds on the £250,000 annual revenue funding which the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) has already pledged.

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