From Sea to Land: The Sights and Sounds of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition

By Clairon McCray

What does remembrance sound like?

Perhaps before we remember, we must first relearn.

Every year, the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition asks us to pause not simply to acknowledge a chapter in history, but to confront one that continues to echo through generations. Yet remembrance becomes difficult when the teaching of Black history is minimized, sanitized, or destroyed. When governments debate whether uncomfortable truths belong in classrooms, memory itself becomes contested. If we are to remember, we must first have our memories awakened.

Many people know the phrase Transatlantic Slave Trade. Far fewer understand what it actually was.

Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, more than 12 million Africans were forcibly removed from their homes and transported across the Atlantic Ocean through one of history’s largest systems of human trafficking. Millions never survived the voyage known as the Middle Passage. Those who did were sold as property, separated from family, language, culture, and homeland. The ocean became both a highway of commerce and a cemetery without gravestones.

Now, Close your eyes. (Inhale... And Exhale)

Do not imagine the ocean from the deck of a cruise ship or the peaceful rhythm of waves against a quiet shore.

Imagine the ocean from beneath it.

Imagine descending into the belly of a slave ship. Naked, In Chains, Separated from Family

The air is thick, not merely humid, but almost impossible to breathe. Saltwater mixes with sweat, blood, vomit, urine, feces, and fear. Bodies are packed shoulder to shoulder, ankle to ankle, chained so tightly that turning over requires another person to move. Darkness swallows nearly everything except the occasional flicker of lantern light filtering through wooden cracks.

Then come the sounds.

Chains scrape against rough timber with every swell of the sea.

Iron cuffs clang as wrists instinctively struggle against impossible restraints.

Wood groans beneath the relentless pressure of Atlantic waves.

The ship creaks as though protesting the evil it carries.

There are muffled sobs spoken in languages that will never again be heard in their villages.

There are whispered prayers to ancestors.

There are songs interrupted by exhaustion.

There are mothers trying to soothe children whose cries eventually fade into silence.

There are screams.

Then there are moments when the loudest sound is the water itself.

Above them, the ocean sings.

Below, humanity suffocates.

The Atlantic remembers every splash of every body thrown overboard. Every ripple carried stories the world will never get to hear.

Water became witness.

It heard names before they were replaced with inventory numbers.

It heard identities before they were erased by plantation records.

It heard faith before it was manipulated into obedience.

The sea has never forgotten.

Neither should we.

Yet memory is challenged when voices suggest slavery “was a choice” or that its brutality has been exaggerated. Such statements are not merely historically inaccurate, they dishonor millions whose suffering is documented through ship logs, court records, archaeological discoveries, firsthand narratives, and generations of scholarship.

No person chained below deck, deprived of freedom, subjected to violence, starvation, disease, and forced labor, chose that fate.

The tragedy becomes even more painful when we acknowledge that Christianity was often weaponized to justify slavery. European colonizers frequently invoked Scripture to defend human bondage, claiming divine approval for racial hierarchy while ignoring the gospel’s call to justice, mercy, and human dignity. Churches, governments, and merchants often became partners in an economic system that treated image-bearers of God as commodities.

Yet Christianity also produced voices of resistance.

Enslaved Africans forged a theology of liberation. They found hope in Moses confronting Pharaoh. They recognized themselves in Israel’s cry from Egypt. They sang spirituals that carried coded messages of escape while proclaiming that God’s justice would outlast every empire.

The same Bible used to oppress became the source of freedom.

This contradiction demands honest reflection from today’s Church.

The chains may no longer bind wrists, but systems of oppression continue to shape minds, institutions, and opportunities. Racism, historical amnesia, educational inequities, and economic disparities remind us that abolition ended legal participation in the transatlantic slave trade, but it did not instantly abolish its consequences.

The sounds changed.

The clanging of iron gave way to discriminatory laws.

The auctioneer’s voice became policies that denied voting rights, education, housing, and equal protection.

Silence replaced testimony in many classrooms.

Forgetting became another form of violence.

That is why remembrance matters.

Not because we wish to dwell endlessly on pain, but because truth is the foundation of reconciliation.

Memory honors those whose names were stolen.

Memory restores dignity where history attempted erasure.

Memory resists every effort to reduce slavery to a footnote or political inconvenience.

On this International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition, may we listen differently.

Listen to the ocean.

Hear the waves striking the shore.

For some, it is simply water.

For others, it is an archive.

An unmarked memorial.

A choir of voices carried across centuries.

The Atlantic still speaks.

The question is whether we are willing to hear it.

And once we hear it, whether we will have the courage to teach it, protect it, and ensure that future generations remember not only what happened beneath the sea, but how its echoes continue to shape life on land.

Clairon McCray is a member and Pastor at Riverside Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, where she continues to grow in faith, leadership, and service. Professionally, she serves as a Program Coordinator for a global e-commerce logistics company, combining organizational leadership with a passion for developing people and strengthening teams. When she is not writing, serving in ministry, or working professionally, Clairon enjoys reading, building her personal library, exploring theology, and spending time with her wife Cheutney and their two beloved Shih Tzus, Ms. Priss and Mr. BB.