Plea for human rights museum highlighting links to slave trade

A SCOTS port town with historical links to the slave trade could become home to a National Museum of Human Rights – housed in sugar sheds.

The plan for Greenock, Renfrewshire, was put forward by MSP Stuart McMillan. He wants the 134-year-old sheds to be used to educate people about Scotland’s part in the transatlantic slave trade, which had links to the area through the sugar and tobacco industries.

Mr McMillan wrote to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon saying the museum would not only be a place for Scots to learn about their past, but for tourists as well. The sheds at the James Watt Dock site were built in 1886. They are the largest surviving cast-iron and brick buildings in the country.

Mr McMillan said: ‘For too long we have cherry-picked parts of our history that don’t demonstrate the full extent of our nation’s involvement in the slave trade.

‘The educational benefits of a Museum of Human Rights would provide an exceptional opportunity. There have been many suggestions about how the sheds should be used but the current debate provides the perfect opportunity for this historic building to play its part.’