The new International Slavery Museum will include a state of the art education facility named after Anthony Walker. © Redman Design

National Museums Liverpool have announced that the new International Slavery Museum, due to open in the city on August 23 2007, will include a state of the art learning facility dedicated to murdered teenager Anthony Walker.

Eighteen-year-old Anthony was killed in McGoldrick Park, Huyton in July 2005 and an Anthony Walker Education Centre at the museum will provide a space for specially created education sessions about the legacy of racial intolerance left behind by the transatlantic slave trade.

The move has been backed by the Anthony Walker Foundation, which was established by his family to raise money and support for projects promoting racial harmony and understanding.

“I’m grateful that the museum has decided to name one of its learning centres after Anthony,” said Anthony’s mother, Gee. “He would be incredibly proud. I have been lucky enough to have a preview of the museum and believe it is an incredibly vital local resource.”

“It’s essential that we all learn from the past in order to build a better and more harmonious future. It is the goal behind the charitable foundation established in Anthony’s name and the museum itself.”

The West Gallery of the new museum. © Redman Design

Schools, colleges, local communities and the general public will be able to use the new facility to take part in a range of programmes including workshops, lectures and debates.

“There is a synergy between the aims of the Anthony Walker Foundation and the International Slavery Museum in tackling the history of transatlantic slavery and its continuing legacy of racism and discrimination,” added Paul Khan, Director of Learning at National Museums Liverpool.

“In naming the centre we will help to keep Anthony’s name at the forefront of people’s minds and it will be associated with something that will have a positive impact”.

The opening of the new museum coincides with International Slavery Remembrance day, which commemorates an uprising of enslaved Africans on the island of St Domingo (modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic) in 1791.

It will feature new dynamic and thought-provoking displays about the story of the transatlantic slave trade and will include new displays about the legacy of transatlantic slavery as well as addressing issues such as freedom, identity, human rights, reparations, racial discrimination and cultural change.

The West Gallery of the new museum will include displays focusing on life in Africa. © Redman Design

Displays will include an interactive music desk, which will chart the origins of today’s popular music from the transatlantic slave trade, a Ku Klux Klan outfit, and a wall dedicated to 70 key black achievers, past and present.