White Debt: The Demerara Uprising and Britain's Legacy of Slavery
On the 200th anniversary of the 1823 uprising by enslaved people in Demerara, now Guyana, Thomas Harding will draw on this event to explore Britain’s legacy of slavery.
For Harding, the discovery that his mother's family had made money from slave plantations triggered a personal quest to investigate a shared history that is rarely discussed amongst white people. His talk, drawing on his recent book White Debt, thus explores the themes of guilt and reparation from a personal, as well as collective, angle.
About the speaker
Thomas Harding is a bestselling non-fiction author, whose grandfather was a student at Jesus College. In addition to award-winning books including Hans and Rudolf: the German Jew and the Hunt for the Kommandant of Auschwitz (which won the Jewish quarterly-Wingate prize), Harding has also written for the Sunday Times, the Guardian and the Washington Post.
Register for free on Eventbrite.
Legacy of Slavery Working Party series
Jesus College’s Legacy of Slavery Working Party (LSWP) is hosting a series of three public talks in November 2023. All talks are free and all are welcome.
