King Charles should ‘apologize’ for royal family’s slave trade involvement: former BBC reporter

nypost.com:

People. “But what that figure is, I have no idea.”Trevelyan, who currently leads a group of British families looking to make amends for their family’s involvement in the trade, revealed that in February she donated $127,000 of her savings to the government in Grenada after discovering her family once owned a thousand slaves from the Caribbean country.The former journalist is now asking the new King, who said in April that he would welcome an investigation into his family’s ties to the slave trade, to do the same.“There would be a great healing power to an apology for slavery and some kind of reparative justice strategy from the King,” Trevelyan said to the outlet.

According to Trevelyan, she understands why Charles, 74, hasn’t simply apologized for the actions. “Presumably there’s a memo somewhere in Whitehall which says you can’t apologize because if you do, that opens you up for liability,” Trevelyan explained. “[The King’s] clearly doing as much as he possibly can and as a constitutional monarch who can’t step ahead of the position of the government,” the former political correspondent elaborated. “But he is also Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

And the church has apologized for its historic links to slavery and set up a hundred million pound fund.”According to the NYC-based reporter, the apology from the head of state is “not just possible, but it’s important to do.”The Post reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment.

During a visit to the Bahamas in 2021, then-Prince Charles condemned the practice of slavery, which was legal in the UK until 1834.“From the darkest days of our past and the appalling atrocity of slavery, which forever stains our history, the people of this island forged their path with.