The St Pauls disturbance (1980) and the fall of the Colston statue (2020) were acts of popular protest in Bristol, whereby violence was exercised in both cases. In this entry I want to explore protest, its different forms and what it can symbolise.
I think there has been a tendency to assume - particularly from those who do not live in Bristol or are engaged with the city’s history - that the fall of the Colston statue was an isolated event in response to the BLM movement following George Floyd’s death. Though it was, it was also part of a much longer history of protest against the statue’s presence in the city’s urban fabric. Since the 1990s, Colston’s ‘hero status’, alongside his statue, has been deeply criticised as new scholarship has made the true extent of his involvement in the transatlantic slave trade more widely known. [See reference no.1]
Olivette Otele has explored how the statue faced much objection in the decades before its removal, particularly through ‘guerrilla arts’, which sought challenge the representation of the past through artistic techniques. [ref no.2] Otele suggests that the use of art builds on Bristol’s reputation as a vibrant centre for street art, most famously known to the work of the UK graffiti artist Banksy. Using Otele’s chapter in the book ‘Embers of Empire in Brexit Britain’, I want to highlight the numerous artistic attacks on the Colston statue in the last couple of decades:
In 2006, the British artist Hew Locke covered the statue in gold to exhibit the vast wealth Colston acquired from his active involvement in the slave trade. (Image on the left)
In 2017, the face of the statue was daubed in white paint. (Image below left)
Will Coles, a few months later, attached an ‘unauthorised heritage plaque’ on the statue’s plinth. (Image below right)
In May 2018, an anonymous individual attached a woollen red ball and chain to the legs of Colston.
In October 2018, an anonymous exhibition to mark Anti-Slavery Day placed 100 miniature statues in the shape of human cargo before the statue’s pedestal.
Image courtesy the Artist, Hales Gallery and P·P·O·W. © Hew Locke. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2021.
‘Guerrilla arts’ have clearly been a popular method of protest against the statue’s obscured representation of the past. Alongside these methods, there have been other attempts to remove the statue through petitions and debates. For example, in 2019 a ‘corrective’ plaque was proposed by a member of Bristol City Council to replace the existing one. The historian Roger Ball explains that the aim was to ‘expose the hidden histories of Edward Colston, including his leading role in organising the seventeenth century slave trade and his political and religious bigotry which made his ‘charity’ fundamentally selective.' [ref no.3] Due to objections from members of the Society of Merchant Venturers, the plaque was never installed.
Clearly the debates, ongoing petitions, acts of protest and serious discontent felt by Bristolians was not enough to provoke change – Bristol City Council did not listen. It is almost as if violence was the last resort for Bristolians. If the statue hadn’t been violently torn down by protestors, would it have ever been removed, changed or re-contextualised by city institutions?
Photo credit: Bristol24/7
I think there is a similar narrative with the St Pauls disturbance (1980). Violence was clearly used here, but in a different way. Arguably the violence exercised on April 2nd 1980 was symbolic of the ongoing tensions felt between St Pauls’ Black community and the police. With St Pauls, violence was used as a form of resistance. Lucy Hodges and Martin Kettle make this point in their book ‘Uprising! The Police, the People and the Riots in Britain's Cities.’ They argued ‘Riots, like other forms of violence, do not just ‘erupt’. Riots have reasons and need to be understood as a specific popular activity.’ [ref no.4] They proceed to contextualise years of ‘riots’ in British history, illuminating they can be provoked for many reasons and come in varied forms. From peasant revolts in the late fourteenth century, civic disorder in 1780, to the Bristol riots in 1831, Hodges and Kettle establish that ‘riots were not invented in the 1970s.’ [ref no.5]
So, with that being said, what caused the violent outbreak in St Pauls 1980? Simon Peplow, a historian who has undertaken extensive research on the events that transpired in St Pauls, has argued:
‘It is generally agreed that this collective violence began after ‘trigger events’ involving police officers and – usually young – black people, with areas experiencing disorder sharing five common characteristics: racial disadvantage and discrimination, high unemployment, widespread deprivation, visibly political exclusion, and common mistrust of and hostility towards the police.’ [ref no.6]
In 1979, Margaret Thatcher became the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom. She maintained her position in office for three terms, until she was succeeded by John Major in 1990. In the last few years of the 1970s, commonly known as the ‘winter of discontent’, Britons experienced severe economic hardship. Stuart Hall, a historian and activist, argued Thatcher and ‘Thatcherism’ worsened matters during the 1980s. He argues that her ‘authoritarian, cost-cutting, neo-liberal agenda was to produce fierce industrial disputes, wholesale deindustrialisation, growing inequality, mass (especially youth) unemployment, [and] growing anti-immigrant feeling.’ [ref no.7] It is known that Thatcher’s harsh monetary policies particularly affected minority communities and would have directly affected St Pauls. For example, in an episode produced by TV eye on the St Pauls conflict, a week after it occurred, the broadcaster Denis Tuohy explains that Bristol’s jobless rate was 5.5%, but in St Pauls, the jobless figures was incredibly high at 15%. An unnamed black resident explains his struggles with finding work, explaining ‘There was a vacancy, and there was no other applicant, and they still wouldn’t give me the job.’ [ref no.8] This example really speaks to the various struggles faced by St Pauls residents.
Arguably the events that unfolded in St Pauls on April 2nd 1980 was a result of pent-up discontent and frustration from the districts Black community at the ongoing racism and economic hardship they faced. Violence is exercised in both events, but in different forms. For St Pauls, the violence was physical. It was a violent clash between residents and the police. With Colston, the statue was violently torn down and dumped into the harbour. In both events, it is important we understand these events are not isolated acts of violence and that there is a strong build up to these two acts of Black resistance.
Both events, though different in nature, can be situated in a wider framework of protest in Bristol. St Pauls (1980) was not the first act of popular protest in the city. I will discuss it in greater depth in my next post, but the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott is another great example of Bristol situating itself in the heart of Britain's racism struggles. Even following the removal of the statue of Edward Colston, there have a series of ‘kill the bill protests’ in the city centre in the last few weeks. Protest is recurring theme in Bristol, occurring before St Pauls (1980) and after the fall of the Colston statue (2020). I highly doubt this will be the last we see of protests in Bristol!
Some questions to think about:
What do you think about the use of ‘guerrilla arts’?
Did you know the statue of Edward Colston had a longer history of protest, dating back to 2006?
What do you think about the jobless figures being 15% in St Pauls compared to 5.5% in the rest of Bristol? What does this suggest about the struggles residents faced?
Feedback always welcome! Comment what you think below, or head over to the padlet to share your ideas!
For a list of the literature included in this post, please look here under the title, ‘The ‘politics’ of protest’