TRADE unionists gathered in Manchester today to commemorate thousands of the city’s 19th century cotton industry workers who boycotted slavery in the United States.

Boycotting slavery in confederate states during the American civil war cost the workers dearly — 60 per cent of Lancashire’s cotton mills shut down.

In December 1862 they wrote to US president Abraham Lincoln informing him of their action, he replied the following January to thank them.

Around 60 years later an admirer of Lincoln in the US commissioned a statue of the president and sent it to Britain. It stands in a square behind Manchester’s Town Hall, where today’s event took place.

The event was co-sponsored by Unite North West Service Industries branch and Unison North West Black Members branch.

Chris Neville, one of the organisers, said: “The cotton workers’ action is one of the best possible examples of workers’ international solidarity.”