The panelists are Nana Grey Johnson, erudite historian of The Gambian Krio; Professor Assan Sarr of Ohio University; Professor Pape Bassene of University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar; and Professor Bala Saho of Oklahoma University. The blockbuster session will be chaired by Ms Binta Jammeh Sidibe, historian and former head of The Gambia Women’s Bureau.
The symposium is the intellectual angle of the three day commemorative activities of the Bicentenary of Georgetown(Janjangbureh) which will last from 4-7 January 2024 at Janjangbureh. So far, several Heads of State in the sub-region have confirmed their attendance. The Commonwealth Secretary General Rt. Hon Patricia Scotland will also attend in addition to other heads of international organisations.
A ranking memebr of the National Organising Committee Hassoum Ceesay told this medium that the symposium will interrogate the role of McCarthy Island in the resettlement, progress and prosperity of the liberated Africans, who gained their freedom from enslavement following the Abolition in 1807, and also look at the role that The Gambia can play in the ongoing process of seeking for reparations for the wrongs of slavery, and how the whole Island of Georgetown can be a centre for heritage rural tourism in The Gambia’. He added that all Gambian intellectuals, students and ex-Armitage students are invited to attend the symposium.
