In June 2020 a statue of the slave-trader Edward Colston was rolled, pushed and dragged into Bristol Harbour during a Black Lives Matter protest. It brought to a head years of protests and campaigning to get the statue removed and other buildings renamed.
Subsequently four people were selected out of a crowd of hundreds and charged with causing criminal damage. Entering a plea of not guilty to the charge during their virtual appearance at Bristol Magistrates Court, 25th January 2021, the four asked for their case to be heard by a Crown Court jury. A pre-trial plea hearing will take place on 2nd March 2021, the full trial will probably not take place until 2022.
At it’s meeting on 27th January 2021 Bristol Trades Union Council heard a report on the proceedings at the Magistrates Court and agreed to show it’s solidarity with the the four people now known as the Colston 4.
Shackled and crammed together, hundreds of enslaved people lay in their own filth. Disease and suicide claimed up to 20 per cent of them during voyage to the Americas.
Human suffering on this scale made Colston rich.
Bristol Trades Union Council 