U.K. Black Lives Matter Protesters Remove Statue of Slave Trader
Written by SOURCE on June 7, 2020
Another racist memorial has been destroyed, but this time, by the hands of protesters.
Black Lives Matter demonstrators in England have removed a 100-plus-year-old statue commemorating a slave trader. The crowd in Bristol used ropes to remove the bronze statue of Edward Colton from its base. Protesters then dragged it to the River Avon and chucked it in the water, where it quickly sunk.
Wowwwww they knelt on the neck of the slave trader Colston’s statue for 8 minutes for George Floyd and then they threw Colston into the river. The Middle Passage slave trader. Drowned.
1. Bristol, you’re not fucking around
2. Everything is EVERYTHING https://t.co/jfQyDfLylv
— siddhartha mitter (@siddhmi) June 7, 2020
The statue had been a fixture in Bristol since 1895, as a tribute to Colton, who traded approximately 84,000 African men, women, and children to the Caribbean and North America. Since a number of petitions demanding the statue be dismantled were unsuccessful, the demonstrators decided to take matters it into their own hands.
Other statues honoring racist figures are in the process of being removed following the ongoing nationwide protests. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam is expected to take down one of Richmond’s controversial memorials of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Randall Woodfin has also removed the 115-year-old Confederate Soldiers & Sailors Monument.
