After years hidden away, Oldham’s memorial to six local volunteers who died fighting fascism in the Spanish civil war has been restored to public view, marking both a victory for campaigners and a renewed tribute to the town’s proud International Brigade heritage, says ROB HARGREAVES
THE man who defaced the plinth of the Arthur Ashe statue on Richmond’s Monument Avenue, remonstrated to passers-by “Don’t all lives matter?” Why should the Black Lives Matter movement have the upper hand when it comes to spray-painting slogans, he wanted to know. “Everybody matters, right?” he asked.
But that’s not what he wrote on the Ashe statue.
He wrote: “White Lives Matter.”
Still the only black man to win the US Open tennis title, a statue of the legendary champion, Arthur Ashe, is now the only one remaining on Monument Avenue in his Richmond, Virginia hometown, where confederate leaders of the Civil War were also once displayed, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Black Americans already understand what genocide looks like, argues the Black Alliance for Peace, who are supporting the complaint, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER



