The fall of Colston – the true story

Since the fall of the slave-trader Edward Colston’s statue in June 2020 the government, institutions, local politicians and his defenders, the Society of Merchant Venturers, have all been forced to react in one way or another. What unites them is that they have all attempted to cover up years of active defence or inaction concerning the celebration, commemoration or memorialisation of slave-traders in the city.

From the mouths of people directly involved in the campaigning and activism that led to Edward Colston’s downfall, Bristol Radical History Group present a 90 minute jaunt through time and history. The walk will tell the true story of a century of protest and dissent against the ‘Cult of Colston’ perpetrated by Bristol’s mercantile and ecclesiastical elite. This culminated in the recent campaign against the Colston ceremonies, the renaming of the Colston Hall, and finally that fateful day in June 2020 when thousands of Black Lives Matter protestors took direct action in the face of a moribund local authority.

Led by members of Countering Colston the walk, starting outside M Shed, will focus on the seven years of recent campaigning and finish at the Colston plinth. Here special guests, who were there on that momentous day when Colston’s statue fell, will reveal exactly what happened…