Black South West Network welcomes the statement issued by Avon & Somerset Constabulary on 7th June following the demonstration by many thousands of people who gathered in Bristol’s centre on 7th June to show their support for the Black Lives Matter movement following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In particular BSWN notes that the police statement includes the words:’ ….it’s important to listen to those who found the statue to represent an affront to humanity and make the legacy of today about the future of our city, tackling racism and inequality.’

The relationship between Bristol’s black communities with the police has in the past not always been a harmonious one and BSWN joins with the Chief Constable in seeing the weekend’s events as a watershed moment when everyone , as the police statement continues, will : ’ challenge racism and inequality in every corner of our city’. The opportunity now exists, states BSWN, to build on the words and gestures with real, practical steps in achieving race equality.

As Mayor Marvin Rees has stated: ‘ People in Bristol who don’t want that statue (of a slave trader) in the middle of the city. It’s my job to unite , hear those voices and hold those truths together for people for whom that statue is a personal affront’. BSWN further notes that the Home Secretary has criticised the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston and stated that ‘justice should be undertaken’. BSWN urges Avon & Somerset Constabulary to interpret these remarks in the same spirit of understanding and tolerance that they displayed in not intervening in what was a peaceful demonstration on Sunday of popular distaste for a long-held view across all Bristol’s communities and ethnicities that Bristol should not be symbolised in its city centre by a slave trader and prominent member of the Royal Africa Company which trafficked an estimated 84,000 men women and children to the Caribbean of whom an estimated 19,000 died in transit.