Journalist quits corporation to push for slavery reparations

A BBC presenter whose family paid slavery reparations has quit the broadcaster to campaign for more payments to the Caribbean.

Laura Trevelyan announced in February that to atone for her family’s slave holdings in Grenada, they would send £100,000 to aid community projects on the island, and the Us-based British journalist will now devote herself to this cause full-time.

Trevelyan has announced that she is leaving the BBC to become a “roving advocate” for reparative justice, and will help campaigns seeking to secure apologies and financial reparations from former colonial powers.

The journalist, who last year appeared in the documentary Grenada: Confronting the Past, said she would be working with figures including Clive Lewis, the Labour MP, who has advocated for reparations to be paid to former imperial possessions.

Trevelyan told The Daily Telegraph now was a good time to work for that, adding: “The Coronation of the King and his comments about being ready to talk about the legacy of slavery provide an opening for a wider discussion.”

In addition to broader campaign work, she will also “work with the families in similar positions to the Trevelyans, with ancestors who owned slaves in the Caribbean and want to make amends”.

The Trevelyans had more than 1,000 slaves in Grenada in the 19th century and owned six sugar plantations, according to research for a BBC documentary on the issue.

In 1834, the family was given compensation of around £34,000 for the loss of its “property” on Grenada – the equivalent of £3 million today.

Trevelyan previously announced that her family was “apologising to the people of Grenada for the role our ancestors played in enslavement on the island, and engaging in reparations”, and said that seven family members would travel to Grenada to offer an apology.

Trevelyan’s decision to continue this work comes following recent efforts by the Caribbean Community (Caricom), an intergovernmental body for Caribbean nations, to secure payments and debt cancellation from former European colonial powers.

She said that her future work would entail “advocating for Caricom’s reparatory justice agenda”.