Bermuda is hosting the African Diaspora Heritage Trail conference this week, with a bevy of distinguished guests, including the former Mayor of Atlanta and US Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young and the current Mayor of Atlanta as well, in attendance.

It's appropriate that the event should be held now, coming on the week of the anniversary of emancipation, when the evil of slavery was brought to an end in Bermuda and throughout the British Empire.

The Diaspora Trail was originally the brainchild of late Tourism Minister David Allen and has picked up steam again since Dr. Ewart Brown took over the Tourism portfolio.

And it is a good idea. It is critical that the descendants of the African slaves who were forcibly brought through the Middle Passage not forget what was done to them. And it is equally important that the ancestors of those who organised and benefited from the slave trade never forget either.

It was a monstrous crime, and its legacy, not only in Bermuda, but in Africa and throughout the Western Hemisphere, is still being felt today. Having said that, great care needs to be taken to ensure that this project does not have the expansion of tourism as its driving force.

It should first be historically accurate and should examine the tremendous damage that the Atlantic slave trade did, as well as the extraordinary tales of courage and efforts that people undertook to end it.

In that context, it is worth looking at how the Nazi concentration camps have been preserved as memorials and reminders that that form of genocide should never be allowed again. To be sure, tourists visit the camps. But that is not why the camps are preserved.

In the same way, all sites on the ADHT, in Bermuda and elsewhere, should be memorials first and attractions second. And there should also be a serious effort made to ensure that the Trail encourages serious research and scholarship. In that context, it is good to see that a great many of the sessions being held this week at the Bermuda conference do concern research and culture along with the development of festivals, "freedom trails" and the like.

This should be the main focus. In the movie "Field of Dreams", a voice tells Kevin Costner's character, "build it, and he will come".

The same should be true of the African Diaspora Heritage Trail.