Moira Stuart challenges the status quo… and gets sacked

This month saw the continuation of the BBC’s Abolition season. Buried amongst the duds were a handful of credible programmes, predictably fronted by or with a heavy influence from African employees at the BBC. In Search of Wilberforce was presented by Moira Stuart and scripted by Pam Fraser-Solomon at the BBC. The documentary challenged Britain’s selective historical amnesia regularly experienced when debating the issue of slavery. In particular, the phenomenon of Wilberforce worship has pervaded the british psyche this year. However, what this documentary successfully and competently did was challenge the notion of the benevolent hero often hailed as the liberator of Africa. Of course, such capable journalism did not escape the eye of the british television critics who were quick to find fault with the programmes premise. An Observer critic bemoaned that "Wilberforce's status and achievement seem diminished". Notably, there was no mention in this particular review of the many African resistance and affirmation movements that have been systematically ‘diminished’ in britain’s publicly available recorded history.

However, one of the most resounding legacies of this programme was the subsequent sacking of the award-winning newsreader from her BBC news reading job on Sunday AM. Sadly, Moira was not the only casualty of the BBC’s ire. Several months later the Executive Producer of In Search of Wilberforce, Pam Fraser-Solomon said that she, along with all the other African BBC employees who worked on the programme no longer work at the BBC.