I n May 1767, a notice was placed in the Manchester Mercury for “Any Gentleman, or Lady, wanting to purchase a Black Boy, 12 years of age” to inquire on Market Street, at the site of today’s Uniqlo clothes shop.

After 15 years of painstaking work through the scattered fragments that recorded and pointed to Manchester’s enslaving history, I still don’t think I have come to terms with my moment of discovery, a few months ago, of those few words captured in black and white. The sale of a human being, a child, on our busiest shopping street.

The reality of Manchester’s relationship with enslavement is something that we as a city are yet to fully appreciate and are only slowly beginning to unravel.

Andy Burnham’s article published in the Guardian on Friday is the most positive response yet by a UK prime minister to calls for full recognition and reparation for Britain’s role in transatlantic enslavement.…