The crossing of the channel by “a Negro Woman, driv’n from France”; a young man sitting in Dove Cottage telling first hand tales of brutality on board a slave ship; a stormy walk home from a visit to the Clarksons, family friends at the forefront of the campaign to end the slave trade – a walk which culminated in one of the most famous poems in the English language: the writings of the Wordsworths are run through with references to race, ethnicity and social justice.

Together with AWAZ (Cumbria), the Wordsworth Trust is marking Black History Month with a series of events and activities across Cumbria. We hope that you will be able to join us and share in the conversation about issues as topical and urgent today as they were in the early 1800s.