How does Scotland’s past shape its present?
This question was at the front of our mind throughout this project. People told us they were keen to understand more but the answer to how does Scotland’s past affect its present depends on your personal experience, understanding of history and perception of the world today.
At our Story So Far event in June 2025, we reflected on this question with others who have been thinking deeply about related issues:
Alex Renton is a journalist and author who in 2021 published Blood Legacy: Reckoning With a Family's Story of Slavery (2021) based on his own family’s involvement in British transatlantic slavery. From this, he co-founded Heirs of Slavery, a group of descendants of people who had profited from British transatlantic slavery and wanted to make amends in the form of reparations.
Professor Tommy Curry is an author and professor of philosophy, holding a Personal Chair in Africana philosophy and Black male studies at the University of Edinburgh. In 2018, he won an American Book Award for The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood. Tommy led the University of Edinburgh Race Review which published Decolonised Transformations: Confronting the University of Edinburgh’s History and Legacies of Enslavement and Colonialism in August 2025.
Irene Mosota is the CEO and Founder of Knowledge Bridge, which transforms equity, diversity & inclusion (EDI), and sustainability strategies into meaningful action, change and impact. Irene is also the Independent Chair of the Edinburgh Slavery and Colonialism Review Implementation Group, which is tasked with overseeing the actioning of ten recommendations approved by the City of Edinburgh council in 2022.
Watch the discussion with Alex Renton, Professor Tommy Curry and Irene Mosota, chaired by Shan Saba, Founder of Scotland Against Modern Slavery on the link below.
