Five Corporate Area churches have come together to host an emancipation lecture on Sunday at the Hope United Church on Old Hope Road in St Andrew that will focus on the legacy of slavery and what they say is its connection to climate change.

The event is scheduled for 4:00pm and the guest speaker will be Dr Kevon Rhiney who is a Jamaican-born lecturer at Rutgers and Princeton universities in the United States.

According Markel Virgo, who is the public relations and communications sub- committee chairperson for the event, Rhiney will make a presentation on climate change under the theme, “Pursuing Climate Justice, the Caribbean Story”.

“What he plans to talk about is how the climate effects we are feeling in the Caribbean is a legacy of slavery, based on the former colonial powers,” Virgo said.

Virgo told the Jamaica Observer that the lecture is an annual event and the five churches collaborating to host it are Bethel Baptist, Boulevard Baptist, Hope United Church, Meadowbrook United Church and Webster’s Memorial Church. The United Theological College of the West Indies is also part of the planning of the event.

“The churches come together on an annual basis to host the emancipation lecture, where a speaker delves into a certain topic based on his or her expertise. It is normally someone with some academic background talking about something within the field of their research and how it is a legacy of slavery,” Virgo explained.

This year marks the 31st staging and, according to Virgo, there is no admission fee.

Dr Rhiney holds a PhD in Geography from the University of the West Indies and is currently an associate professor of Human-Environment Geography at Rutgers University – New Brunswick. He is a past recipient of the British Commonwealth Postdoctoral Fellowship and a visiting fellow at Kellogg College which is a graduate-only constituent college of the University of Oxford in England.

Rhiney’s research involves the development and justice implications of global environmental change in the Caribbean, particularly the ways socio-ecological shocks are unevenly experienced by historically marginalised communities.