Rev Canon and The Bishop of Liverpool’s Canon For Reconciliation Mal Rogers MBE recently attended the 20th anniversary charity gala for the Anthony Walker Foundation on 23rd October 2025 and was presented with an award by the charity recognising his ‘steadfast commitment, enduring support and invaluable contributions to the Anthony Walker Foundation’ and the Walker family. Following on from last month’s Black History Month, we want to use this momentum to highlight Mal’s contribution to racial justice – something he has always championed through ministry for many decades.
Mal became Vicar at St Gabriel’s, Huyton in 2000 where he still serves today but in 2005, not far from Mal’s house, Anthony Walker, a local teenager, was violently killed in a racially motivated murder.
Rev Rogers attended the awards ceremony believing he was just going as a guest and to support the family as he always has done. He never believed he himself would be presented with such a prestigious award that night.
Mal was deeply struck by this horrific and racist murder and knew that he had to support the family and the local community as the vicar through this tough and challenging time. Mal was one of the clergy who conducted Anthony’s funeral in Liverpool Cathedral where over 3,000 people attended to pay their respects to Anthony. As well as taking Anthony’s funeral, Mal’s outstanding support to the family continues. He organised a candlelit procession and vigil from St Gabriel’s Church to McGoldrick Park, the location where Anthony was murdered. Thousands of people joined him and the Walker family, to declare peacefully and powerfully ‘not in our name.’ Each year since Anthony’s murder an event and other acts of remembrance have taken place in Huyton organised by Mal, echoing those initial heartfelt responses, so particularly relevant today. Racially motivated violence and hatred is still ‘not in our name.’
He joined the board of the Anthony Walker Foundation to provide prayerful guidance to the charity as they proceeded to campaign against racism across the country and internationally. Over the years it has grown and its work includes advocacy, emergency support, school ambassadors, enabling young people from diverse backgrounds enter into the legal profession to mention just a few of its programmes. Although Mal is no longer a trustee, he remains a key advocate of the Anthony Walker Foundation and a loyal friend to Gee Walker, Anthony’s mother and founder of the charity.
To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Anthony’s murder, Mal in conjunction with the Anthony Walker Foundation hosted a day of remembrance where people from across the region visited St Gabriels to pray, leave messages for his family on special boards (which had been brought to the church by Knowsley Council from their positions around the borough), light candles and support one another. Among the visitors were first responders from the horrific attach twenty years early. It was an incredibly moving commemoration.
What happened on 30th July 2005, deeply shocked and moved Mal and led him in becoming a champion for diversity and racial justice not just across the Diocese of Liverpool but around the world. Although he had some experience in reconciliation (working for a time in Northern Ireland for example) Mal went on to become a key player and lead in the Triangle of Hope which is an anti racist partnership across three continents and dioceses, The Diocese of Virginia in America and the Diocese of Kumasi in Ghana. The Triangle also involves people and churches in parts of The Caribbean. The Triangle of Hope brings people and places together with a shared history, albeit one we in Liverpool are certainly not proud of and have taken too long to acknowledge. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade profited the people and church in Liverpool hugely, and The Triangle of Hope has been an advocate for truth-telling since it began. The triangle now connects young people, bishops, dioceses, parishes and other projects in programmes to promote racial healing and reconciliation. For example the youth pilgrimages which take place annually and the permanent community of young adults from around the Triangle based in Tsedaqah House in the precincts of Liverpool Cathedral, and serving in a number of settings across the diocese and city region.
Jennie Johnson, Racial Justice Officer said
“Canon Mal has been an advocate for racial justice and reconciliation for many years. His dedication to share his story, speak up for justice and act to see sustainable change has been an encouragement to many across the Diocese. I am grateful to Canon Mal for his continued support and join with those from the Anthony Walker Foundation and the wider community in thanking him for his faithful service.”
As we continue to reflect on Black History Month, we encourage churches across the Diocese to pray for racial justice, to raise the conversation within their PCCs, and to learn from diverse voices within the Church. Last year’s Archbishop of York’s Lent Book, Tarry Awhile, is a great place to start, exploring spirituality through different cultural traditions.
From all of us at the Diocese of Liverpool and Liverpool Cathedral, we offer our heartfelt thanks to Mal for his twenty years of service to social and racial justice across our city and the global Anglican community. Racial justice is not a short-term goal; it is a lifelong commitment. Together, through faith and action, we can make a real difference.
Photo credit: Stephon Joseph
