Over the weekend, a businessman who died 299 years ago became the talk of Britain. His name was Edward Colston. A renowned slave trader, Colston condemned over 80,000 men, women, and children to a life of servitude, 19,000 of whom died en route from Africa. He used money from the sale of human beings to fund schools, hospitals, and churches in his home town of Bristol.
As a result, Colston’s name and face were plastered on various landmarks throughout the city. Activists have been campaigning to have these remnants of Colston’s legacy removed from Bristol’s public spaces for years with little success. On 7th June 2020, Black Lives Matter protestors finally took the issue into their own hands. They ripped down a statue of Colston in the city centre and dumped it in the river.
A Nation Divided
The protestors’ actions sparked widespread national debate. Home Secretary Priti Patel was quick to condemn the 10,000 demonstrators. She referred to them as a ‘mob’ responsible for the ‘utterly disgraceful’ destruction of public property. Kier Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, agreed that it was ‘completely wrong’ to topple the statue.
However, Starmer also stated that the monument should have been removed long ago. His words echo those of other politicians and activists who supported the protesters’ behaviour. Their perspective was summed up by the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool, which stated that ‘the representation of Edward Colston was highly contentious and offensive to many, and in bringing him down, it is important to note that we are not erasing history, but instead making history.’
Stirring up Old Debates
This issue of ‘erasing history’ is a contentious one. Far-right activist Tommy Robinson has referred to the Black Lives Matters campaign against statues as an attack on his ‘country…history… culture [and] identity’. More moderate voices have also raised objections. Defending a statue of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes outside its walls in 2016, Oriel College, Oxford, argued that the presence of such an artifact is an ‘important reminder of the complexity of history and of the legacies of colonialism still felt today’.
The College added that they can ‘help draw attention to this history [and] do justice to the complexity of the debate’. However, this argument has flaws. The vast majority of those who walked past these landmarks were unaware of their history. Despite long-running campaigns, neither the Cecil Rhodes nor Edward Colston statues had any plaque outlining the destruction they caused. The men’s legacies were therefore left unchallenged, while their monuments failed to provoke a sense of meaningful historical self-reflection in most passers-by. Instead, as Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees stated, the shrines to racists were an ‘affront’ to the descendants of the men’s victims.
A Global Movement
The destruction of Colston’s statue followed a wave of similar incidents in the US. Since the murder of George Floyd, Confederate memorials have been removed across the country. States like Alabama, Arizona, Kentucky, Florida, Indiana, and Virginia have all taken steps to rid their streets of monuments to supporters of slavery. This trend now appears to have taken root in the U.K.
On the 9th June, days after the events in Bristol, a statue of slaveholder Robert Milligan was taken down outside the Museum of London Docklands. That same day, crowds gathered in Oxford to demand the removal of Cecil Rhodes’ statue at Oriel College. Beyond the U.K., a statue of the Belgian King Leopold II, responsible for the deaths of up to 15 million Congolese people, was taken off the streets in Antwerp. Meanwhile, Australian activists have also begun to demand similar action against memorials to the likes of Lachlan Macquarie, who orchestrated the massacre of Aborigines.
As with the spread of Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the world, events in America have inspired a global phenomenon. Anti-racist activists from Bristol to Belgium and beyond are fighting to rid their streets of shrines to those who profited from the misery of minorities.