Yesterday, as Black Lives Matter protests intensified in the UK, a statue of the former British PM Winston Churchill was defaced and crossed out with black ink and the words ‘was a racist’ were written underneath.
While Churchill is a celebrated figure in Britain due to his leadership during World War II, in India he’s held responsible for the Bengal famine that had caused the deaths of more than 4 million people.
However, the defacing of his statue did create some debate last night.
Earlier in Bristol a bronze statue of Edward Colston, a prominent 17th Century slave trader, was torn down and thrown into the harbour during the second day of anti-racism protests. Colston was a member of the Royal African Company, which transported about 80,000 men, women and children from Africa to the Americas.