Sheila S. Walker '66, Executive Director of Afrodisapora Inc., delivered the keynote address to the U.N. General Assembly on March 29 to mark the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
From the U.N. press release:
Delivering the keynote address at the annual observance, Sheila S. Walker, Executive Director of Afrodisapora Inc., said current research made it possible — and obligatory — to tell that story in new and different ways that underscored the foundational role of enslaved Africans in creating the modern world. For the first 300 years of the 500-year history of the modern Americas, the overwhelming majority of the population had been of African origin, she explained. Between 1650 and 1850, they had produced 75 per cent of the commodities traded in the Atlantic world, fuelling the Industrial Revolution.