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The Morning Star 2026 Conference
Slavery, colonialism and resistance, from Bristol to Boston to Hong Kong
To oppose racism means also opposing imperialist wars and imperialist destabilisation and coercion, writes CARLOS MARTINEZ
A protester holds a sign as she and others gather to listen to speakers, rap artists, faith leaders and others during a Caribbean-led Black Lives Matter rally at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza last Sunday

ON June 7, during an anti-racist rally in Bristol (part of the global wave of protests in the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd), a group of protesters ripped a statue of notorious slave trader Edward Colston from its plinth and rolled it into Bristol harbour. 

This act, although widely condemned by Establishment politicians (Home Secretary Priti Patel, for example, describing it as “sheer vandalism”), was justly celebrated by anti-racists and anti-colonialists worldwide. 

A prominent member of the Royal African Company, Colston is estimated to have been involved in the enslavement of at least 84,000 Africans, nearly a quarter of whom died on the journey between west Africa and the Americas. 

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