Sage Willoughby, 22, who is in court facing charges of helping to tear down the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol, UK, during a Black Lives Matter protest on June 7, 2020, told the court his was “an act of love – not violence.”
Willoughby, who was in court together with Rhian Graham, 30, Milo Ponsford, 26, and Jake Skuse, 33, did not deny helping to tear down the statue of the 17th-century merchant, which he called “a monument to racism.” The four are facing charges of criminal damage.
The bronze statue of Edward Colston in Bristol was pulled down and thrown into the River Avon.
Edward Colston (1636 –1721) was an English merchant, philanthropist, and Tory Member of Parliament, who was involved in the Atlantic slave trade. However, his involvement in the slave trade predated the abolition movement in Britain, when slavery was condoned in England by the Church, intellectuals, and the educated classes.
In 1895, 174 years after Colston’s death, a statue was erected in the center of Bristol to commemorate his philanthropic works – he supported and endowed schools, houses for the poor, almshouses, hospitals, and Anglican churches in Bristol, London, and elsewhere.
In July 2018, Bristol City Council made a planning application to add a second plaque to the statue, which would “add to the public knowledge about Colston,” including both his philanthropy and his involvement in slave trading. There were three drafts of the text for the plaque, all of which were criticized for sanitizing history, minimizing Colston’s role in the slave trade, omitting the number of child slaves, and focussing on West Africans as the original slave traders (which, of course, they were). Nevertheless, a wording was finally agreed upon and the bronze plaque was cast.
Graham, Ponsford, and Willoughby are charged with helping to pull down the statue, and Skuse with throwing it into the river.
Willoughby told the court that, having grown up in the St Pauls area of Bristol, with a large Afro-Caribbean population, “I have been signing petitions since I was 11 years old to have that statue removed.”
“Imagine having a Hitler statue in front of a Holocaust survivor – I believe they are similar,” he said. But, of course, Willoughby, who is white, did not experience slavery directly, nor was he alive during the 17th century.
On June 4, 2021, the damaged statue was put on display by Bristol’s M Shed museum, with the statement: “This temporary display is the start of a conversation, not a complete exhibition.”
Well, the middle of a conversation, since most of it has already taken place through non-verbal means.