That\u2019s the view of Bristol poet and activist Lawrence Hoo, who said the debate and focus of the Black Lives Matter movement went in a \u2018completely different direction\u2019 in the aftermath of the statue toppling.<\/a> Others say the act ‘reignited the issues of racism and Bristol\u2019s past’.<\/p>\n Five years on and there are still the same views and arguments about what happened on the afternoon of June 7, 2020 – many in Bristol say the toppling has given new impetus to education and discussion about Bristol\u2019s history, while others angered by the toppling at the time maintain that the act was vandalism and question the motivation for it.<\/p>\n The statue of Edward Colston had been in The Centre area of Bristol for 125 years<\/a> when people on a protest march gathered around it on Sunday June 7, 2020.<\/p>\n The nation was still under Covid restrictions, but thousands had taken to the streets in Bristol and cities around the world that weekend as part of a movement called Black Lives Matter.<\/p>\n Thirteen days earlier, police officers in the American city of Minneapolis murdered a man called George Floyd, who had been detained on the street on suspicion of trying to spend a forged $20 bill.<\/p>\n The murder, and numerous previous killings of Black people by police in the US, reignited the long-running Black Lives Matter movement which quickly went global. The rally on College Green saw as many as 10,000 people gather with the focus on police brutality and racism both in the US and in the UK too.<\/p>\n The crowd – people of all races – toppled the statue, and videos of that moment, and of it being pushed into the Floating Harbour next to Pero\u2019s Bridge<\/a>, were seen by billions around the world.<\/p>\n For many in Bristol, it was a shocking moment of mob disorder, damaging part of the city\u2019s physical heritage. For many others, it was a cathartic moment that had been a long time coming.<\/p>\n It was also, despite the global movement and worldwide attention, a distinctly Bristol thing to happen. Commentators from Los Angeles to London and Miami to Melbourne had lots to say about the statue being toppled, with no clue who Edward Colston was or the 100 years of objections many in Bristol had to the \u2018cult of Colston\u2019.<\/a><\/p>\n But suddenly, in the UK at least, there was something to debate. Few people, if any, had challenged the idea that the racist murder of Black people by police was a bad thing, for example, but suddenly there was controversy around statues and history, the slave trade and its legacy. Suddenly people stopped talking about racism in 2020 and started debating the slave trade in 1700.<\/p>\n The recently-released BBC<\/a> documentary on those days and weeks of early summer 2020 – Backlash: The Murder of George Floyd – shows this clearly. The first half of the documentary charts George Floyd\u2019s murder and the rapid spread of the Black Lives Matter movement.<\/p>\n Halfway through, it explores the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston, and then immediately, the documentary is filled with pundits talking about criminal damage, statues, history and the rights and wrongs of direct action.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a point not lost on Dr Lawrence Hoo, a poet and community activist in Bristol\u2019s St Pauls area for years before 2020. A year after the toppling, he described Colston as ‘the biggest distraction going’ – distracting from the issues of the 2020s around racism, policing and inequality. It’s a view that’s strengthened in the years since.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s interesting how a campaign that was started to address and draw attention to the cold-blooded murder of people at the hands of the police, became hijacked and skewed into a completely different direction revolving around statues and decolonisation,\u201d he said. \u201cNow what was that campaign called again?\u201d he asked wryly.<\/p>\n The Black Lives Matter globally does continue, albeit without the fervour of the scenes of 2020. But what difference has that march, the movement and the toppling of the statue made to Bristol itself? Again, opinion was divided when we put that question out on Facebook<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n \u201cThere has been more open dialogue about the history and legacies of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, which is a very positive thing,\u201d said Dino Zelenika, responding to the post, whereas Dan Hurley was one of many left uncomfortable by the sight of a large crowd taking the law into their own hands.<\/p>\n \u201cIt did nothing but degrade the order and fabric of a great country that’s losing its way a little more with each generation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Luke Geach said he didn\u2019t think much had changed at all. \u201cI think nothing has changed,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is still the class divide, there is still racism, both negative and constructive, but at the end of the day it\u2019s still racism.<\/p>\n “I still don’t agree with the toppling of Colston as I see it as an attempt to rewrite history by removing anything we don\u2019t agree with in the modern age,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Bristol writer and creative producer Roger Griffith disagreed. He said \u2018plenty\u2019 has changed in Bristol following the catalyst of the toppling of the statue. \u201cIt has reignited the issues of race, racism and Bristol\u2019s past, central to our future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In the days and weeks after the statue was toppled, the previously rather niche campaign \u2018Countering Colston\u2019 – which had been focussed on challenging the \u2018cult of Colston\u2019 in Bristol\u2019s schools and public buildings – became the centre of attention. Suddenly, the position of organisations that had been resisting that campaign and defending the celebrations and commemorations of Colston collapsed. Colston\u2019s name was taken from the Colston Tower, pub signs, schools and pubs.<\/p>\n The statue ended up in the M-Shed museum<\/a>, albeit not as part of a larger exhibition about Bristol\u2019s slave trade history, but instead in an exhibition about the city\u2019s history of protest. The long-called-for museum<\/a> or exhibition centre on Bristol\u2019s slave trade past is still not a reality.<\/p>\n Many argued that this was an attempt to \u2018rewrite history\u2019, but those who had long called for this said it was the opposite – it wasn\u2019t changing history at all, it was the end of a celebration of a slave trader, and would lead to a greater understanding of that history.<\/p>\n The debate on what difference the toppling made is split down the same lines as the debate about the rights and wrongs of toppling the statue in the first place.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was merely an act of a bunch of yobs,\u201d said Mark Lewis on Facebook. \u201cNo one is promoting slavery in Bristol and this was just brainless idiots damaging public property that related to part of the city’s history. It brought shame on those who carried it out and on the police who failed to stop it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Police issued appeals to identify 18 people in connection with the act of toppling the statue, pushing it down to St Augustine’s Reach and tipping it into the water. Eight were never traced, ten were arrested and six of those accepted a police caution.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1_Black-Lives-Matter-protests.jpg\")
Protesters kneel on the neck of Edward Colston’s statue after it was toppled.(Image: Ben Birchall\/PA Wire)<\/p>\n![\"Dr](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/0_BR_PG_100723lawrence_hoo-218.jpg\")
Dr Lawrence Hoo at the University of Bristol(Image: PAUL GILLIS \/ Reach PLC)<\/p>\n![\"Roger](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/0_Roger-Griffith-with-Al-Sharpton.jpg\")
Roger Griffith with US race campaigner the Rev Al Sharpton<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1_BRI_PG_140324colston-124j.jpg\")
Marvin Rees at the permanent exhibition of the history of protest at racial injustice, which features the statue of Edward Colston(Image: PAUL GILLIS \/ Reach PLC)<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/0_Black-Lives-Matter-Protesters-Cleared-Of-Criminal-Damage-In-Felling-Of-Edward-Colston-Statue.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/0_RGP_MDM_080620Bristol_04.jpg\")
The empty plinth in Bristol city centre the day after the toppling(Image: Rowan Griffiths)<\/p>\n