Shepherd

'The archaeology of black memory: reckoning with 1807 in 2007' is the theme of a lecture to be given by Professor Verene Shepherd, at the annual Distinguished Lecture Series, which will be hosted by the Jamaican Consulate in Toronto, on Thursday.

The Distinguished Lecture commemorates the 45th anni-versary of Jamaica's Independence and Heritage Week/National Heroes Day. This year the focus is on the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic trade in Africans, and Professor Shepherd was invited in her capacity as chairman of the Jamaica National Bicentenary Committee (JNBC).

The lecture will be held at the St. Lawrence Hall, King Street, Toronto, starting at 6.00 p.m. and is a joint effort of the Consulate General of Jamaica in association with the JN/Jamaica National Building Society, Toronto Offices.

Professor Shepherd who is also professor of social history at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus, recently returned from Florida, where she gave the Distinguished Eric Williams Memorial Lecture at Florida International University, on Friday, October 5, speaking on the topic 'Emancipation, the African Atlantic, and the Long Road to Freedom'.

The bicentenary or 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic trade in Africans is being observed in Caribbean, Africa, the United Kingdom and in other areas where Africans were enslaved. The JNBC has been staging a number of events to mark the year, most recent being a lecture by Mr. Randall Robinson, attorney-at-law and social advocate, on 'Why reparation matters' at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston on Friday, October 19.

Professor Shepherd has also been invited to Nigeria to deliver the Convocation Lecture at Igbinedion University, Okada, on Friday, November 23.