LONDON – Four people were charged with criminal damage on Wednesday over the toppling of a statue of a 17th-century slave trader and public benefactor in the city of Bristol.
Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service said Rhian Graham, 29, Milo Ponsford, 25, Jake Skuse, 32, and 21-year-old Sage Willoughby are due to appear in court Jan. 25 for an initial hearing.
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The statue of Edward Colston was pulled from its plinth in the southwest England city during an anti-racism demonstration in June and dumped in Bristol harbor. Its toppling was part of protests in several countries against racism and slavery, sparked by the death of a Black American man, George Floyd, at the hands of police in Minneapolis in May.
Colston made a fortune transporting enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas on Bristol-based ships. He was a major benefactor to Bristol, with streets and institutions named for him, and the statue-felling sparked a debate about racism and historical commemoration.
City authorities fished the Colston statue out of the harbor and say it will be placed in a museum, along with placards from the Black Lives Matter demonstration.
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