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Regional secretary with the National Education Union
The brutality of modern racism cannot be separated from its history
CLAUDIA WEBBE MP welcomes the acquittal of those who toppled the statue honouring the slaver Edward Colston, which sanitised the abhorrent violation of black Africans’ humanity
The empty plinth where the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol once stood after it was taken down during a Black Lives Matter protest in June 2020

THE acquittal of the Colston Four, the protesters charged with criminal damage after anti-racist campaigners tore down a statue of slave-trader Edward Colston in Bristol, shines a light on the ongoing struggle for equality and justice and the enduring legacy of the transatlantic slave trade.

The abhorrent statue of a man responsible for the violent deaths, rape and enslavement of thousands of people was pulled down and thrown into Bristol’s harbourside during the largest mobilisation of anti-racist protest for decades. 

The trigger for such protest was the brutal police killing of George Floyd in May 2020, in Minneapolis, that shook the world. In its wake came the international mobilisation of the Black Lives Matter movement, the demand for change and the march for justice.

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