US Consulate advises Nigerian youths to learn about black history

The United States Government has called on Nigerian youths to learn about black history, the intellect of Africans as well as the abolishment of slavery.
Delivering a key note address at the opening ceremony of 2019 Black History Month held at the University of Lagos yesterday, the US Consulate Public Affairs Officer, Russell Brooks, said when young people read about the intellectual arguments used in justifying slavery and colonialism, it would give them a broader view of whether or not people were by nature mean, cruel, brutal or unjust.

According to him, "The first African slaves to arrive in the English colonies of North America arrived in 1619 to Jamestown, Virginia. Dutch traders who had seized them from a Spanish slave ship brought them there. For that reason, this year is being marked as the 400th anniversary of that momentous event. It also marked the beginning of the need for events such as this. You see, in the United States, from that point forward, until slavery was abolished, there would be a need to justify that particular aspect of American life to rationalise this specific form of inhumanity and injustice."