Blue plaque for anti-slavery campaigner Ottobah Cugoano

Recognition of 18th-century pioneer on London building is earliest for a black person

Ottobah Cugoano, an 18th-century anti-slavery campaigner who wrote the most radical abolitionist text of its time, has become the earliest black figure to receive a blue plaque.

The plaque on a building in Pall Mall, central London, aims to shine light on the remarkable and little-known story of a man described by the historian David Olusoga as a “true pioneer … the first African to demand the total abolition of slavery and one of the leaders of Georgian London’s black community.”

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