Famous people with direct links to the slave trade go on journeys around the globe to document their connections to it and examine how it shaped the modern world. In the first episode, actors David Harewood and Hugh Quarshie explore opposite sides of the Atlantic slave trade, which saw an estimated 12 million Africans transported across the ocean and sold into a life of slavery.
Shannon LaNier visits Monticello in Virginia and makes a discovery about the nature of his ancestor Sally Hemings' relationship with Thomas Jefferson, and how he tried to hide the fact he owned slaves while living in France. Trisha Goddard investigates how slaves have been traded across the Indian Ocean for millennia the incredible journey of an 18th-century classical musician who was enslaved twice before finding freedom is also featured.
Actor Ray Fearon reads the sadistic diaries of planter Thomas Thistlewood, who violently abused enslaved Africans who worked under him. Sam Pieh, the great, great grandson of the man who led the revolt on board the slave ship the Amistad, travels to Yale University to meet Professor David Blight, who tells him more about the circumstances of the revolt.
In 2020, the murder of George Floyd shook the world and, within weeks, the statue of Britain's most famous slave trader was toppled by Black Lives Matter protestors in Bristol. Historian Prof David Olusoga returns to the city to see the statue of Edward Colston on display for the first time.
