P.J. Patterson Institute names ‘Heir of Slavery’ Laura Trevelyan an associate fellow

The P.J. Patterson Institute for Africa Caribbean Advocacy has announced the appointment of British-American journalist and reparations advocate Laura Trevelyan as an associate fellow.

In a statement, Patterson, the statesman in residence at the Institute, said Trevelyan, in her new role, will assist it in mobilising funding “to strengthen the Institute’s role as a significant advocacy organisation capable of facilitating positive change, extending its outreach in the global space and strengthening ties between the motherland and the diaspora”.

He noted that “at this stage, special attention is being devoted to funding and sustainability, strengthening the human resources/technical expertise to support the work, and building of a global sphere of influence through high-quality research, publications, seminars, and workshops”.

Trevelyan is a descendant of a prominent British family who owned more than 1,000 slaves on a plantation in Grenada. On learning this, she quit her job as a BBC anchor and United Nations correspondent. She and her family made a public apology during a ceremony in Grenada in February 2023 and launched a fund for reparations with a donation of £100,000, towards education on the island.

Trevelyan has also co-founded a group called ‘Heirs of Slavery’, working with other British families whose ancestors profited from slavery “to amplify the voices of those already calling for reparations, including Caribbean governments”.

‘Gracious gesture of reparation’

Situated at the University of the West Indies, Mona, the P.J. Patterson Institute for Africa Caribbean Advocacy aims to centralise and coordinate its relations with African peoples, Governments, universities, and institutions through a specialised institutional agreement.

Welcoming Trevelyan to the Institute, Patterson congratulated her for “the principled position and gracious gesture of reparation taken by you and the Trevelyan family to the Government and people of Grenada”.

He added, “We also welcome your decision to step back from a significant role at the BBC to be a global advocate for reparative justice for the Caribbean.”

Patterson said that “in the face of an increasing array of existential threats to the lives and livelihoods of peoples on both sides of the Atlantic, there is an unequivocal need to strengthen, deepen, and extend the social, cultural, psychological, economic, and other connections between African and Caribbean peoples”.

He said: “To this end, the P.J Patterson Institute for Africa Caribbean Advocacy at The University of the West Indies was established in 2020 to become the hub for advocacy and facilitation in this area. As part of The UWI System, which includes several academic centres on the African continent, the Institute seeks to access intellectual resources and research to support its advocacy role.”

Patterson said that “the Caribbean intellectual tradition is a profound one, and it has made extensive contributions to the questions about being human and what that means for the world. Let us recognise the complexity of this tradition and also be attentive to its popular forms as we seek to transcend commercial and generational boundaries”.

Sir Hilary Beckles, vice chancellor of The UWI, chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Committee, and a member of the Institute’s Advisory Board, said, “The Reparatory Justice Movement is grateful to the P.J. Patterson Institute for Caribbean African Advocacy (UWI) for developing and hosting an Honorary Fellowship for reparations advocacy, which has attracted the inaugural occupancy by Laura Trevelyan, who has been a pioneer in pursuing a strategy to bring heirs-of -slavery-enrichment to the table of accountability.”

For her part, Trevelyan said that, as an associate fellow for Africa Caribbean advocacy, she hoped to support the reparative justice agenda and that she would “do my best to help build on the global momentum towards healing and repair as we finally begin to confront the legacies of transatlantic slavery in Africa and in the Caribbean”.