© Audrey Albert

What is a “corridor”? Whenever I am working on a new project I like to investigate the history of the key words I will be using. When I thought about this article, I realised that I had never looked into the history of the word “corridor”. Etymology time!

As often happens when we do historical digging, we find information that feels uncomfortable. The first thing that came up in my search was a link to a French military term from the 16th century. It could have been worse but still I felt disappointed with this semantic link. I decided to keep searching.

It is always useful to see how a word has been stretched and folded over time. What was the context then? Where were the pivot points? How did this word get to its current meaning? This process feels similar to what the researchers at the University of Nottingham and the University of Hull would have done four years ago as they looked into the history of the Guardian newspaper for The Scott Trust. That research led to the creation of my role as the Programme Manager for the Legacies of Enslavement project.

In 2021, it was revealed that nine of the eleven financial backers for The Guardian paper were cotton merchants. The paper was founded in Manchester and was originally called The Manchester Guardian. In response to this, the Scott Trust set up the Legacies of Enslavement project which seeks to enact restorative justice over a 10-year period.

My role was created to figure out what restorative justice means in the Greater Manchester context. I knew that one of my first actions would be to reach out to the Oxford Road Corridor’s institutions. Why? Well let’s go back to my research. The word “corridor” derives from corridoio, Italian for ‘running place’, which came from correre, Latin for ‘to run’. The distinction between a corridor and hallway is that it is connecting public spaces.

A major part of my work is about raising consciousness. We often refer to Manchester as Cottonopolis. We roam up and down Oxford Road without really understanding the history of the buildings towering over us. There is no better place for me to pick to start telling the full story of Manchester. The place where money, business, knowledge, culture, people, heritage, power run through this city.

Held in Manchester in 1945, the 5th Pan-African Congress was part of a series of seven meetings, intended to address the decolonisation of Africa from Western imperial powers. Image provided by Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre and Education Trust.

Countless historical moments have happened on this glorious corridor. This year it will be the 80th anniversary of the 5th Pan African Congress being held in Manchester, this was a seminal event that attracted pioneering Black leaders from across the world as well as locally such as W.E.B Dubois, Kwame Nkrumah, Kath Locke and Len Johnson.

For one of the key hosts, Ras T Makkonen, Oxford Road was a vital resource. He owned restaurants on this road and had links to shops and accommodation on the road and nearby which allowed him to host many of the delegates. The main events for the conference were held in Chorlton Medlock Town Hall, now replaced by the Manchester Metropolitan University’s School of Art. There is a plaque to mark this but I reckon we should do more. A major part of my role this year will be acknowledging this seminal history in association with Oxford Road Corridor and its partners.

Now my research into corridors was not solely restricted to language. It has been interesting to look at other corridor models – from the Gullah Geechee Cultural Corridor to the Royal Society of the Arts’ Northern Creative Corridor.

The Guardian is explicitly linked to the Gullah Geechee community as the research has shown that our founders traded with cotton from the Sea Islands in the US. So building partnerships in that region, to atone for the newspaper’s history, is another key element of the programme. The context of the cultural corridor here is extremely different to what Oxford Road Corridor represents but nonetheless relevant. It is still useful to see how the word is being used and what orchestrated action means universally.

Slightly closer to home, the Northern Creative Corridor is an attempt to link creative industries across the north of the country. One of the more unique and exciting things about the Oxford Road Corridor is the cross-sector representation: academia, business, health, tech, culture. Manchester has made a name for itself as one of the first industrial cities in the world, and we have continued to build on that legacy across various sectors.

I know that in 80 years’ time, people will be putting us in a search engine (or some futuristic equivalent). I hope that the way we act now means they will not feel uncomfortable with what they find. But in order for us to do that, we must confront and learn from what has happened in the past.

Another word for corridor is passageway. Now is the perfect time to let this unique corridor be a passageway for dialogue. We could easily run away from this conversation or let it pass us by. But I am confident that we can come together and allow our joint efforts, knowledge and pride to create a new passage for Manchester.

Let me show you the way.