During her residency at Parliament, the poet and playwright Rommi Smith led workshops at Burntwood School in South London. The students produced some poems and prose inspired by the slave trade, which you can read here.
Freedom is running in a field with the wind rushing by, freedom is laying down on grass and smelling fresh air...
They look at me and stare...
Ladies and Gentlemen think about what that word might mean to my brothers, sisters and me...
Freedom is having a choice and doing whatever you want to do...
I was the fire, turning crimson orange, roaring...
I feel like there's someone running over a mountain...
The staircase within me thinks it's time to step...
My name is who I am, it represents what my parents felt about me when I was born...
My name never left me...
AnYone...
My name is Cleo Josephine Little. It is just a name, and arrangement of letters, of sounds...
Trees have many branches; freedom has many choices...
I know he fears the chain...
Blood spills as I cut into his mouth...
I speak to you to tell you about the horrors you tormented us with...
Access details of millions of records from both Houses and other historical material relating to Parliament.