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The moment the people of Bristol pulled down the statue of Edward Colston, slave trader
#BlackLivesMatterUK #BlackLivesMattters #bristoltaketheknee #Colston
It's now being rolled towards the floating harbour.
Colston opened up the transatlantic slave trade to Bristol merchants & around 20,000 people, incl 8,000 children, died on his ships before they even reached the Americas.
Bristol became Britain's leading slave trading port.
People quickly leapt on the statue as it fell.
Worth noting that the tall office block behind in this picture is 'Colston Tower', & it's on Colston Avenue with the (soon to be renamed) Colston Hall concert venue beyond.
#Bristol
#BlackLivesMatterUK #bristoltaketheknee
The statue of Bristol slaver Edward Colston has just been thrown into the Floating Harbour by a huge crowd of people.
#bristoltaketheknee #Bristol #BlackLivesMatterUK #BlackLivesMatter
The bridge behind the spot in this picture is called Pero's Bridge, after an enslaved African man who was one of few who completed the third leg of the 'triangular trade' back to Bristol
It is the *checks notes* only memorial/thing named after an enslaved person in the city
The statue of slaver Edward Colston is now at the bottom of the Floating Harbour, but there are plenty of things in Bristol that still celebrate him
Have a read.....
#BlackLivesMatterUK #bristoltaketheknee #Bristol #Colston #BlackLivesMatter
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
....& slave trader Edward Colston isn't the only slaver from Bristol (or person who profited from slaver) who is honoured in the city by having things named after them...
have a read
#BlackLivesMatterUK #BlackLivesMatter #bristoltaketheknee
@DavidOlusoga
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
Edward Colston's ships would have left for West Africa from this spot
#Colston
#BlackLivesMatterUK #BlackLivesMatter #Bristol

The statue of Edward Colston was erected in 1895 with a plaque saying how great he was.
Recent plans for a second plaque detailing his slave trade history were scuppered by a historian from the Merchant Venturers, the organisation that ran the slave trade
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
Calls for the statue of Bristol slaver Edward Colston to be removed (& put in a museum) come in waves every couple of years ago.
With the #BlackLivesMatterUK #bristoltaketheknee protests this week, a petition gained thousands of signatures
#Colston
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
Follow the latest from today in Bristol here

#Colston #Statue #BlackLivesMatterUK #Bristol
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
When the statue of Edward Colston was erected in Bristol in 1895, the Merchant Venturers did a public subscription to pay for it & not enough people donated to it, so the rich people of Bristol had to sub the shortfall.
#bristoltaketheknee #BristolTakeover #BlackLivesMatterUK
In past couple of years, things in Bristol named after slave trader Edward Colston have been gradually renamed
A primary school, a secondary school 'house' (here), a pub & soon to be @Colston_Hall
#Bristol #BristolTakeover #BlackLivesMatterUK
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
I wrote this 3½ yrs ago in response to debate about Colston Hall being renamed.
It should never be a competition in misery, but this clumsily points out Edward Colston & his fellow slavers treated Bristol’s C18th poor (white) people terribly.

bristolpost.co.uk/news/news-opin…
Bristol historian @DavidOlusoga has written several times for @BristolLive about #Colston and the city's slave trading past.
"No British city is more wilfully blind to its history than Bristol" he said.
#bristoltaketheknee
#BlackLivesMatterUK #Bristol
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
Annual church services are held in Bristol to celebrate/commemorate Edward Colston, with schools involved.
They often have a police guard.
This is my report from the biggest one in 2017.

#bristoltaketheknee #BlackLivesMatterUK #Colston
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
Generations of older Bristolians have been brought up to believe Edward Colston was a great philanthropist
Here's Bristol-born&bred @Christine20Tony explaining how this works & what the result is
#Colston #bristoltaketheknee

bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
Christine is a founding member of a group called @CounterColston set up in recent yrs to, er, counter Colston.
Another Countering Colston member, from Bristol Uni here, explaining how those who defend Colston have airbrushed the city's history
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
Bristol doesn't have a museum or any real venue telling the story of its key involvement in the slave trade, or in abolition
A campaign to create one in this big dockside building failed
#Bristol #Colston #BlackLivesMatter #bristoltaketheknee
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
This was all 200-300 yrs ago, right?
When slavery was abolished in the British Empire in the 1830s, compensation was paid... to the slave owners.
It added 40% to the govt budget that year & the UK taxpayer has ONLY JUST paid it off
#Bristol #Colston

bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
Pic from my friend @MoodyColin
Colin says the man here knelt on the neck of the toppled statue of Bristol slave trader Edward Colston for 8 minutes.
"We counted it. It felt like a long time"

#BlackLivesMatterUK #GeorgeFloyd #Bristol #bristoltaketheknee #BlackLivesMatter
Going back to that plan for an 'Abolition Shed' museum/venue I tweeted about earlier.
@BristolCouncil said no & were so desperate for their deal to sell O&M shed for a restaurant developer, the council spent £1.4M on a boat that was in the way
#Colston
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
The symbolism of (the statue of) Edward Colston ending up at the bottom of Bristol docks is huge.
Colston's slave ship captains would have thrown men women & children overboard to lighten the load or if they were running low on food.

bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
A portrait of Bristol slave trader Edward Colston hung in the Lord Mayor's parlour for decades.
A couple of yrs ago Bristol elected its first black Lord Mayor
Check out what @CleoDanceBaton did
#Colston #BlackLivesMatter #bristolprotest
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
Update: Police in Bristol have launched an investigation into criminal damage.

#Colston #Bristolprotest #BlackLivesMatter
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
In 2018, it was proposed that a 2nd plaque be put on Edward Colston's statue detailing his slave trading history
A prominent Tory councillor was so opposed to the idea, he said theft of vandalism of 2nd plaque 'may be justified'
#Bristol #BristolProtest
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
Update:
Edward Colston's wikipedia entry has already been updated
Getting serious tho
Despite presenting as a hip cool multicultural city, Bristol is the most unequal city in the country.
This is a complex issue around class, education, opportunity, employment & gentrification
Read more here:
#Colston #BristolProtest
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
And of course, race.
The Runnymede report's main finding was that black Bristolians were less likely to have access to good education & employment opportunities.
More on one aspect of this here (from 2018):
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
Back to the statue a minute for this from @jowsefsmith
One of the main arguments against reassessing/renaming/removing Colston from Bristol's public spaces was you 'can't rewrite history'.
#BristolProtest
Sorry, keep getting sidetracked
Just on the @RunnymedeTrust report into Bristol's inequality.
You can't talk about Bristol's issued of racial inequality, lack of opportunity, poverty & education without reading it, so here it is (well, a briefing doc)
runnymedetrust.org/uploads/CoDE%2…
Back to the 18th century we go.
The poor folk of Bristol didn't see much of Colston's philanthropy.
They were more likely to end up in 'indentured service' in the plantations than at a Colston school
Read this:
#BristolProtest #Colston #BlackLivesMatter
bristolpost.co.uk/news/news-opin…
The statue of Edward Colston stands, sorry stood, in the very centre of Bristol, looking down to the docks.
More than all the (many) other things named after him in the city, it became a symbol for the city wrestling with its slaving past
#BristolProtest
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
Got QTd by Bristol legends @MassiveAttackUK earlier, so I should mention that they led the boycott of the @Colston_Hall
They've always refused to play Bristol's biggest concert venue
It's due to be renamed next year
#BlackLivesMatter #BristolProtest
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
Speaking of boycotts...
Britain didn't have much of a civil rights movement in the 60s?
Bristol did - & it changed the nation
You won't have been taught about this at school
#BristolProtest #BlackLivesMatter
bristolpost.co.uk/news/local-new…
If there's talk already of a new statue on that plinth, some are suggesting Paul Stephenson, one of the leaders of the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott
He's thankfully still with us, so that feel a bit weird, but then Thierry Henry...

#BristolProtest
#BlackLivesMatter
You've come this far, so can I just shout out @IcncBlkBritons
Her project to paint huge murals of the Seven Saints of St Pauls, including bus boycott & @StPaulsCRNVL founders is still there - go see it
#BristolProtest #Bristol #Colston #BlackLivesMatter
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
If you've come this far, hopefully you'll see that what happened today was more than about #BlackLivesMatter & the police treatment of black people in the US, or indeed here.
It was a particularly Bristol thing, a city that has struggled, painfully, to come to terms with its past
But of course, the police treatment of black people in Britain is about more than the police & black people, as well.
It's about 400 years of history & Edward Colston was a symbol
Watch this video. To the end. It explains it better than I ever could
The other thing to note, as many have, is that the people who pulled down the statue of Edward Colston & chucked it in the docks were of all races, black and white.
Colston was a divisive figure, for sure, but there were many, many white Bristolians who hated that statue
I've got to take the dog for a walk now
Can I just leave you with one more thing.
Watch @DavidOlusoga's brilliant A House Through Time on BBC
The first in the series dealt with Bristol's slave trade past
Here's what the Prof said in 2017, when half the city was up in arms about the Colston Hall
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
That was from 2017.
Here’s @DavidOlusoga’s take on today.
#colstonstatue #colstonstatue
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
This thread 👆🏼is all about trying to give some context to Edward Colston’s statue & the saga of Bristol wrestling with his legacy.
As @MarvinJRees tries to point out here, there’s a lot more to this...
The mayor @MarvinJRees’s expression when asked by @krishgm which was worse, Colston’s slave trading or criminal damage of toppling a statue? was momentarily the best human version of the 😳emoji I’ve seen
Bristol’s Victorian elite began what @CounterColston describe as the ‘cult of Colston’ by naming lots of things after Edward Colston & erecting the statue
The street round the corner from the statue was renamed Colston St.
So it is possible, then...

This point from @jetfury off of @BeakBristol explains a bit about the context today too...
The 1st of many drafts of the proposed 2nd plaque that in the end never happened included:
“Bristolians who did not subscribe to his religious and political beliefs were not permitted to benefit from his charities”
What does that mean?...
#BlackLivesMatter #colstonstatue #Bristol
In early 1700s, Colston wanted to donate big ££ to Bristol’s main school so they could expand
But it came with a catch - only the children of CofE parents could attend.
Bristol, the birthplace of Methodism, was a hotbed of non-conformist Christians.
The school turned his ££ down
So Colston withdrew his money & by 1710 set up his own school where Quakers & other non-conformists were barred: The Colston School
#Colston #colstonstatue #BristolProtest #bristol
colstons.org
Further reading...
#Colston #colstonstatue #Bristol
The children of Bristol were brought up celebrating Colston as a philanthropist without being told where the money came from.
At the annual thanksgiving services, kids are given ‘Colston Buns’, a special sweet bun.
This pic is from 2006 & the Evening Post would cover it like this
Our front page this morning reiterates how this was a distinctly local Bristol event, albeit one with obvious links to global events today & 185-325 years ago.
There’s also a Colston Hall, see...
which until today had been the main focus of our debate.

Well found little gem from @RegionalHistory Steve, reminding us that it’s not the first time Bristolians have pulled down a statue.
The king, as well. No one tell Priti Patel, mind...
#Bristol #BristolProtest
The case for & against.....
The signs that were carefully placed around the empty plinth are going to be collected up and preserved.

#Bristol #ColstonHasFallen #Colston #colstonstatue
UPDATE: The Mayor of Bristol has confirmed what will happen to the statue of Edward Colston
At some point soon.
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
And the local Conservatives in Bristol have had their say about it all
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
BREAKING:
Bristol school takes 'immediate action to' remove its own version of the statue of Edward Colston from its main reception area
#BristolProtest #Colston #colstonstatue #Bristol
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
Earlier I put up the 2017 version of this, about the 20 other things in Bristol that commemorate Colston
Some have since been renamed, so I've updated it today.
pls have a read & RT
#colstonstatue #ColstonHasFallen #Colston #Bristol #BlackLivesMatter
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
Along with many in Bristol's black community, @CounterColston & @Christine20Tony, perhaps the most important challenger of the Colston myth in Bristol has been @BrisRadHis
Follow them - this is their 2019 take on the plaque
brh.org.uk/site/articles/…
Bristol has an official City Poet and at the moment it's @Vanessa_Kisuule
She's marked the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston in verse 👇👇👇👇
#colstonstatue #ColstonHasFallen

Bristol's Society of Merchant Venturers (which Colston & many slave traders were members) put up the statue & runs two schools named after him, have responded to the sight of the statue being torn down
#Colston #ColstonHasFallen #Bristol
Full story below
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
The police chief who watched as the statue was pulled down, jumped on for an hour & then dragged to the docks has given m'colleague @ConorGogarty an in-depth interview about what happened
#colston #bristol #colstonstatue #blacklivesmatter
Read it here:
If you've come this far on this thread, well done.
You'll remember the Tory cllr Richard Eddy, who in 2018 said vandalism/theft of a 2nd plaque on #ColstonStatue 'may be justified'?
This is his verdict on Sunday's events.
#Bristol #Colston #BristolProtest
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
The organisers of Sunday's protest were collecting donations for PPE masks etc & had some money leftover so they are continuing to collect, but for a youth work charity based in St Pauls
gofundme.com/f/brisblm-for-…
The statue of King Leopold II has just been pulled down in Brussels, I see
And Number 10 doesn't seem to want to comment on the story we just published about Cllr Richard Eddy
I think that statue of King Leopold II in Belgium might be in Antwerp, not Brussels?
And the authorities pulled it down, apparently
This just in...
Bristol rugby star @EllisGenge spoke to the BBC to say the toppling of #ColstonStatue was 'warranted' & BBC did an article about this, illustrated with a picture of England team-mate @LewisLudlam
#BlackLivesMatter #Colston #Bristol
UPDATE: You'll remember the '20 things' that commemorate Colston in Bristol article I tweeted higher up this thread?
Here's an update on one of them:
#BristolProtest #Colston #BlackLivesMatter
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
It is being described as a momentous day in Bristol's history.
But what exactly happened when?
#colstonstatue #Colston #Bristol #BlackLivesMatter #BristolProtest
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
This is the most important story in the ENTIRE thread

From @tbhrema

please read, please RT
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
Almost all of this thread has been about facts, history, events & reporting.
How about what people in this city feel?
Have to add this to the thread from @travisalabanza as it’s, well, just read it...
#Colston #Bristol #BristolProtest #BlackLivesMatter
gal-dem.com/i-didnt-think-…
Hi, I found a third statue of Edward Colston in Bristol to do another story about, sorry.

#colstonstatue #Colston #BristolProtest
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
UPDATE: Avon&Somerset police chief Andy Marsh backs Supt Andy Bennett, who was in charge of the operation on Sunday, while local MP Kerry McCarthy slams the Home Secretary for getting involved

bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
All that's left now is the plinth on which Colston's statue stood, with its original plaque.
And that's been changed too...
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh.

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Related hashtags

#BlackLivesMatterUK #BlackLivesMattters #bristoltaketheknee #Colston #Bristol #BlackLivesMatter #Statue #BristolTakeover #GeorgeFloyd #BristolProtest #colstonstatue #ColstonHasFallen

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Tristan Cork BLive
@TristanCorkPost
THREAD: I was back in the Stroud Subscription Rooms for the first time in years today & had a flashback to a moment there that’ll stay with me forever, involving the legendary Cider With Rosie author, Laurie Lee.
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#CiderWithRosie
I have so many stories about Laurie, it was an honour to know him, albeit in his final years.
But this one I’ll share now.
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Tristan Cork BLive
@TristanCorkPost
THREAD: You wait ages for Bristol South to have a Brexit Party candidate & two come along at once.
Firstly, here's @rdevitoboutin announcing he's been selected to be the Parliamentary Candidate for Bristol South
Until yesterday, he was a candidate in Cornwall.
#GeneralElection19
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Read 40 tweets
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Tristan Cork BLive
@TristanCorkPost
THREAD:
Dear London,
You probably didn't know Bristol is a city where disruptive protest is an almost every day occurrence.
You do now.
Let's take stock of what some people of @XRBristol have done in London for @XRebellionUK these last few days....
pls RT...
#ClimateCrisis
@XRBristol @XRebellionUK First up, Bristol's pensioners are not happy about climate change.
This was the warning a week ago
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
@XRBristol @XRebellionUK That was added to by the warning that 250 activists from Bristol were ready to be arrested.
bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-n…
Read 23 tweets

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