It’s time for the British Museum to tell the story of slavery

Five million people passed through the gates of the British Museum last year to marvel at the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon Sculptures and the bust of Ramesses the Great. But they wouldn’t have found much about the British Empire’s trade in enslaved African people.

Britain first started shipping people across the Atlantic against their will in 1562, and by 1730 it was the world’s biggest trader in enslaved African people. British ships transported around 3.4 million African people. The profits from their suffering transformed British society and fuelled the Industrial Revolution. But head to Room 46 – which covers this period – and all you find is a room full of pots and figurines.

The signs in Room 46 talk about “trade and discovery”, “encounters with Africa, Asia and the Americas” and “profitable crops of sugar and tobacco”. But nothing in the museum – not even Hew Locke’s temporary exhibition exploring “histories of British Imperial power” – measures up to the scale of this human tragedy.

History is complicated and can sometimes be painful, but when we hide the awkward truths of our shared history it breeds hatred and division.

This summer, racist violence swept across the UK. These riots didn’t happen in a vacuum, they came after years of division and decline. It’s time for cultural institutions to step up.

When you ask people if the British Museum should play a part in telling people about the trade of enslaved African people, more than two-thirds of them agree. And more than half of them think the museum should tackle this issue with a permanent exhibit.

Next spring, the British Museum is launching a multimillion pound project (PDF) which will “reimagine” a third of its galleries. Now is the moment to seize this opportunity and create a permanent exhibit that does justice to this fundamental period in our shared history.

We’ve written to the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, and to the British Museum to demand they do the right thing.

View the full breakdown of the YouGov survey results.

It’s time for the British Museum to find room for slavery, so that it can tell a better story of how we got here and who we are.