Antigua vigil remembers enslaved Africans as campaigners press for reparatory justice

Against the soft glow of flickering candles lining the sands of Fort James Beach in Antigua, hundreds of attendees gathered on November 2 for a solemn, purpose-driven memorial honoring the hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans trafficked to Antigua and Barbuda during the transatlantic slave trade, as concurrent advocacy efforts for formal reparatory justice gained momentum on the sidelines of the 2024 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).
Organized by the regional Repair Campaign, the vigil centered on honoring the 140,000+ enslaved men, women and children who were forcibly transported across the Atlantic to the twin-island nation between 1677 and 1815, including an estimated 22,000 souls who perished amid the brutal, life-threatening conditions of the Middle Passage, their remains never laid to rest on land. The Rev. Dr. Bonnie Smith opened the ceremony with a moving prayer of remembrance, followed by a series of remarks from prominent regional and global advocates: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, British Member of Parliament Bell Ribeiro-Addy, reparations activist Jacqui McKenzie, and scholar Dr. Anne C. Bailey, all of whom urged attendees to preserve the legacy of the enslaved ancestors and pass the fight for full reparatory justice down to coming generations.
Parallel to the beachside memorial, the Repair Campaign hosted a high-level closed-door forum on the margins of CHOGM, titled “From Samoa to St. John’s: Britain, the Commonwealth and the Road to Reparatory Justice”. The convening brought together a cross-section of leading stakeholders: Ribeiro-Addy, who chairs the UK Parliament’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations; Denis O’Brien and Dr. Ralph Gonsalves representing the Repair Campaign; Jasmine Mickens from the Global Africa Reparations and Restitution Fund; Dorbrene O’Marde, chairman of the Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Support Commission; and distinguished academic professor Sir Hilary Beckles. Over the course of the session, participants mapped out concrete demands that Commonwealth member states are putting forward to the British government, analyzed rapidly shifting public and political attitudes toward reparations within the UK, and identified actionable pathways to turn long-running policy discussions into tangible, lasting progress for communities impacted by the transatlantic slave trade. At the close of the forum, all attendees affirmed that a coordinated, unified cross-Commonwealth advocacy framework is the critical next step to secure formal, meaningful engagement from the British state on long-overdue reparatory justice commitments.