Slavery museum to be expanded in 10-year Liverpool waterfront project

Plans to expand the International Slavery Museum (ISM) have been announced as part of a 10-year project to redevelop Liverpool’s waterfront.

The museum, which opened in 2007, will have a new entrance through the Dr Martin Luther King Jr Building (formerly the Dock Traffic Office) and the museum hopes the expansion will place it at the centre of national and global conversations about racial inequality and the legacies of transatlantic slavery.

The museum’s increased prominence on the waterfront, whose dry docks were once used for fitting out, cleaning and repairing slave ships, is a sign of Liverpool’s renewed commitment to addressing its ties to the transatlantic slave trade, which was central to the city’s economy in the 18th century. Planners hope it will frame how visitors understand the history of the docks, which also house Tate Liverpool, and the environment surrounding them.

“The slave trade was the backbone of the city’s prosperity, and it is long overdue to weave this history into the public realm,” said Laura Pye, the director of National Museums Liverpool.

In the aftermath of last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, there were calls for a slavery museum to be placed in London, with some seemingly forgetting there already was one. It rankled slightly with the museum’s staff, who had been planning an expansion of the ISM since 2017, and feel strongly that Liverpool’s past makes it the ideal place to explore Britain’s history of slavery.

“Liverpool is a really important place to start understanding more and having the conversations that we need to have,” said Janet Dugdale, executive director of museums and participation at National Museums Liverpool.

There will be new spaces focusing on and created with Liverpool’s black communities and those most affected by historical and contemporary slavery, as well as links forged with museums exploring similar themes around the world.

Recent social movements, such as the Black Lives Matter protests, and the growing discussion of Britain’s role in the slave trade had changed the urgency of this discourse and involvement, said Dr Richard Benjamin, head of the International Slavery Museum.

“This exciting and timely transformation project will allow the museum to grow, develop and be central to national and global discourses. These include racial inequality, other legacies of transatlantic slavery, being actively anti-racist, diverse, and inclusive,” he said.

National Museums Liverpool will launch a competition in March to identify designers to be part of the area’s development.

Liverpool’s council also recently approved an application to install a plaque on the World Museum on William Brown Street in the city centre, recognising the role the Brown family – one of the museum’s funders – played in the slave trade. It is part of a city-wide project to add context to Liverpool’s many streets and buildings that have links to the slave trade.