This is The Guardian.

Hi, this is Nushin.

We've got something different for you today.

I'm here to introduce you to the first episode of Cotton Capital, a six-part podcast series.

It is part of a mammoth two-year investigation launched by The Guardian to dig into its links to slavery.

Today in focus we'll be back tomorrow, but in the meantime, I'll hand you over to the Guardian Journalist and editor of this project, Mywall Robinson.

Last June, I found myself outside King's Place, the Guardian's London headquarters.

I was here for a board meeting.

Recording in progress.

The Scott Trust, the company that owns the Guardian, was gathering.

Reporters aren't usually invited to these meetings, but this one was different.

You can't see your PowerPoint so far.

On the agenda was some research that had been commissioned.

Into whether The Guardian's first editor, John Edward Taylor, had links to transatlantic slavery.

In the summer of 2020, when we first began to discuss Taylor and this history, I was not convinced we'd ever get to the point of being able to see the document that Cassius just shown us.

That's Professor David OluShogger talking at the meeting that day.

You might recognise his voice from the TV.

He's a historian and broadcaster, and one of the members of the Scott Trust.

Summer of 2020 that he was referencing was the summer of a racial reckoning.

Following the murder of George Floyd, people took to the streets around the world.

In Bristol and the UK, TV cameras captured protesters pulling down the statue of a 17th-century slave trader, Edward Colston, and throwing it into the harbour.

In that moment, a direct link between the past and the present was being made.

...