Zanzibar historic cathedral restored, featuring center on slave-trade heritage

The land just outside the narrow streets and corridors of Stone Town, Zanzibar, where Christ Church Anglican Cathedral was built, was once a slave market. Now the church stands as a symbol of remembrance to the men, women, and children taken from East Africa and sold into slavery.

After a multiyear project by the Anglican Diocese of Zanzibar—part of the Anglican Church in Tanzania—to restore the cathedral, it will be rededicated later this year or in early 2017.

The cathedral, named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000, also recently opened a heritage center to commemorate the abolition of slavery and to educate people about slavery in its modern forms.