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Church aims to ‘make its mark’ with a national Walk of Witness to commemorate Bicentenary

30 November 2006

 

The Church of England is to invite thousands of people from across the country to join the Archbishops of Canterbury and York for an historic event next year to mark the Bicentenary of the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

The Archbishops will lead the Walk of Witness through parts of the capital to culminate in a large-scale act of worship. The event, organised by the Church’s Committee for Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns (CMEAC), forms the main part of the Church’s wider awareness campaign, Making our Mark, set up following the General Synod debate in February this year on the subject of the Bicentenary.

The walk – scheduled to take place in London on Saturday 24th March - is being designed as a high-profile public act of Christian witness, following the formal apology made by the General Synod in February 2006 to the heirs of those who were enslaved.

Organisers hope the event will be a gathering to acknowledge the lasting legacy of the slave trade and will serve as an act of repentance and confession.

The Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin, chair of CMEAC, explains: “The event will mark the beginning of a healing process and a foundation for future relationships. We hope it will serve as a public acknowledgement of a time in history when people of African origin were barbarically treated, and will present an opportunity to re-commit ourselves to truly live by the values of the gospel - loving, caring and respecting one another as human beings made in the image of God. With these aims in mind, we pray that the walk will become an assertion of the power of the resurrection.”

A dedicated website, www.makingourmark.org.uk, will go live in the next month with further information on the Walk of Witness including a map of the route and details of how to register.

Making our Mark is benefiting from funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The venture is also supported by Anglican mission agency USPG, who today continue to work with churches in the Caribbean and West Africa. Making our Mark is the Church of England’s national contribution to Set All Free, a project of Churches Together in England working to commemorate the bicentenary.