Note to Correspondents

EXHIBIT ON SLAVE TRADE OPENS AT United Nations HEADQUARTERS, 26 March

In observance of the first annual worldwide commemoration of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, a joint exhibition will be launched in the North-East Gallery of the Visitors’ Lobby on Wednesday, 26 March at 6 p.m.

The exhibit will be formally opened by Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information.  Statements will also be made by Howard Dodson, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and Greg Belanger, President of Amistad America.

The two-part exhibit consists of:

The Middle Passage:  White Ships/Black Cargo -- An exhibit of 52 narrative drawings from the book by Tom Feelings.  These drawings are mixed media works of tempera, pen and tissue detailing the horror of the importation of Africans from the old world of freedom to a strange new world of slavery.  Also included in the exhibit are three sculptures by the same artist.

Amistad:  The Story -- This exhibit features a scale model of the Freedom Schooner Amistad and describes the historic Amistad Incident of 1839.  In June 2007, a full-scale replica of the schooner Amistad embarked on an epic voyage visiting the ports of call of the Atlantic slave trade in a celebration of the 200^th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, when Britain and the other slave-trading Powers (followed by the United States) signed an international treaty banning the trade.  Photos of this contemporary voyage will also be on display.

These exhibits are presented as part of a week-long series of events to increase awareness of and educate present and future generations about the causes, consequences, lessons and legacy of the 400-year slave trade.  The exhibits are organized by the United Nations Department of Public Information, in cooperation with Amistad America, the McKissick Museum of the University of South Carolina and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

For more information on United Nations exhibitions, call Jan Arnesen at tel.:  212 963 8531, e-mail:  arnesen@un.org; or Liza Wichmann at tel.:  212 963 0089, e-mail:  wichmann@un.org.  For more information on related events, please visit http://www.un.org/events/slaveryremembrance.

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For information media • not an official record