Laura Trevelyan and Clive Lewis were making a podcast about slavery reparations. Then they discovered her ancestors probably owned his

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A friendship can survive many issues. But might it survive discovering out that considered one of your pal’s ancestors probably enslaved your individual? For Norwich South MP Clive Lewis and former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan, it was an uncomfortable revelation they needed to face head-on.

“Clive’s ancestors might have been enslaved by mine, which is horrible – but it’s a starting point to get into a very necessary topic,” says Trevelyan. “If I felt angry,” provides Lewis. “I would’ve said so to Laura. Our relationship is one where we can speak openly with each other.”

Lewis and Trevelyan have created a new podcast, Heirs of Enslavement, which tackles their shared historical past, and their battle for reparatory justice for the descendants of enslaved folks within the Caribbean. On their present, and over Zoom at the moment, the pair have an upbeat rapport, with laughter and mutual compliments flowing simply. They’re additionally considerably unlikely allies: Lewis, 52, is a republican on the Labour left, whereas Trevelyan, 55, says she has “pretty centrist” leanings. They inform me they perceive if folks may see their connection as shocking, even earlier than figuring out their stunning historic hyperlink. But regardless of their variations, they are united of their ardour for dialog, in addition to their shared want for reparations in relation to Britain’s half within the horrors of slavery.

“People that know us both know that we come from very different backgrounds,” Lewis says. “And there’s definitely space between where our politics lie. I think that’s what makes it all the more attractive and interesting; it shows how people from quite a broad spectrum of politics can come together on what is quite a controversial issue.”

Trevelyan’s consciousness of her household historical past started in 2014 when, whereas working as an anchor for BBC World News America, she discovered that her ancestors had not solely owned as much as 10 totally different plantations in Grenada, however had really financially benefited from the abolition of slavery in 1837. “They got compensation for six different sugar cane plantations in Grenada for what was termed their property,” she explains. The Trevelyans ended up receiving £34,000, equal to £3.5m in 2021, offering them with wealth and social affect for generations.

Yet, it wasn’t till the killing of George Floyd in 2020 and the ensuing revival of the Black Lives Matter motion that Trevelyan correctly confronted as much as her ancestors’ position in a centuries-old social imbalance. “Every night I was anchoring the US BBC News broadcast, interviewing people about the meaning of the protests in the States,” she says. “I thought, if the legacy of slavery in America is police brutality towards Black men, what does it mean in Grenada? What’s the legacy there? What’s the debate? What role did my ancestors [play]?”

Trevelyan explored these questions within the 2022 documentary known as Grenada: Confronting the Past. In 2023, 104 descendants of the slave plantation proprietor Sir John Trevelyan signed a letter of apology to the folks of Grenada on behalf of their ancestors, and additionally established an academic fund on the island price £100,000. Trevelyan then left her 30-year broadcasting profession to advocate for Caribbean reparations full time.

Back in Britain, Lewis was no stranger to the talk over compensation for descendants of slavery. The son of the outstanding Grenadian-British commerce unionist Tony Lewis, and influenced by the late Labour politician and reparations activist Bernie Grant, Lewis had lengthy been questioning how finest to convey to the political forefront the difficulty of British reparations to the Caribbean. “Even in my own party, this wasn’t an issue that was being discussed,” he says. “Labour’s one-line position is: ‘The party does not believe in reparatory justice’. It was an issue I was looking at but thinking, ‘How do I speak up about this?’”

Days after the Trevelyans’ public apology, Lewis took motion. He informed ministers that the UK should pay reparation to Caribbean nations to make up for Britain’s position in slavery. “I knew that that was my moment to stand up in parliament and say: ‘If Laura and her family can do this, then why isn’t the British state?’”

From there, Lewis and Trevelyan’s friendship started. They began to message and name one another on WhatsApp, commending each other for taking stands whereas sharing their particular person sources. When the chance to go to Grenada collectively and create a podcast about it arose, they couldn’t say no. In Heirs of Enslavement, they take a fascinating journey by means of Grenada and different Caribbean nations, talking to figures of the reparatory justice motion similar to Sir Hilary Beckles, chairman of the Caricom Reparations Commission.

While there, nonetheless, they learnt that their Grenadian histories were linked extra straight than they’d beforehand thought-about. “Clive’s father is from Gouyave, which is close to the Beausejour plantation, which the Trevelyans part-owned,” Trevelyan says. “People don’t move that far away from their ancestral home. Grenada is a small island of about 120,000 people, and the Trevelyans owned 10 plantations over 150 years. The historians we spoke to in Grenada said that it’s really very likely that Clive and I are linked by this history.”

How is it potential to maneuver previous a revelation as painful as that? How should it really feel to face within the blazing sizzling solar, in a subject of towering crops, imagining the merciless circumstances of harvesting them 200 years in the past? Lewis admits that it wasn’t straightforward, however that he and Trevelyan’s efforts to convey justice to these harmed by British colonialism were higher than getting caught within the specifics of their historical past. “Some elements of the trip were definitely eerie, standing on the plantation that Laura’s family owned, with Laura. At one point, we were standing next to an outhouse which could have been a sugar storage place, or slave quarters. But being stood there, as friends, was kind of a full-circle moment.”

Lewis and Trevelyan noticed first hand how slavery and colonisation are mentioned with complete transparency in Grenada, which opened their eyes to the comparative silence surrounding each topics within the UK. Neither of them thinks the dearth of dialog is an accident.

“It’s my firmly held opinion that one of the reasons for the UK ‘forgetting’ about this was because it was a vast crime scene,” Lewis says. “The UK narrative is that wealthy people are that way because they’ve earned it, and they’re smart, they’ve invested wisely. It doesn’t tell you where that wealth came from – the brutality of empire and postcolonialism. Forgetting is convenient.”

A direct relative of Trevelyan was additionally instrumental in forming how Britain’s relationship to slavery is taught. “In school, I was just taught that Britain abolished slavery, and how fantastic that was,” she says. “My great-grandfather, GM Trevelyan, was the bestselling historian of the first half of the 20th century. He must have known about the history of slavery money in his family, but in his history of England, he celebrates abolition as a core principle of 19th-century liberal Britain. There’s no discussion of the horrors or the legacies of the slave trade.”

Though they’re conscious that not everybody will probably be receptive to revisiting the uglier aspect of British historical past, Lewis and Trevelyan hope that their podcast helps educate all listeners – whether or not descendants of the enslaved, enslavers, or neither – on how the previous nonetheless has main results on at the moment. “Clive and I are a microcosm of Britain’s history,” Trevelyan says. “It’s painful, but there’s great promise in the future in addressing it.”

‘Heirs of Enslavement’ is out there on all podcast suppliers