Museum Campaign

The Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER) has a long-standing campaign to establish a national museum, archive and learning centre dedicated to illuminating Scotland’s role in empire, slavery, colonialism and migration. Alongside fellow organisations and activists, we have successfully campaigned for funding to work towards a space to bring these histories to life.

Empire, Slavery and Scotland’s Museums Steering Group

As a result of successful grassroots campaigning for Scotland to attest to its involvement in empire, processes of colonialism, and historic slavery, the Scottish Parliament passed a motion to establish the Empire, Slavery and Scotland’s Museums Steering Group (ESSM). ESSM then undertook independent research and nation-wide consultations which highlighted mistrust of the museum sector, which either mis-represented or did not represent at all the histories of formerly colonised peoples. Further, the sector felt inaccessible and exclusive to a large portion of Scottish communities. These concerns informed the six recommendations that ESSM submitted to the Scottish government to address and correct how imperial structures and practices continue to be perpetuated in the museum sector. Read more about the recommendations here.

Recommendation one, to create a dedicated space to explore Scotland’s colonial history, builds upon the work begun by CRER with a virtual project: empiremuseum.scot.

A new body is being formed to take forward the establishment of this space. Further updates will be added to this page as the work develops.