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The response by Marvin Rees, Bristol's mayor and the city as a whole to the extraordinary events which followed the toppling of the Colston Statue in Summer 2020 is documented.
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00:01In the summer of 2020, one city in Britain would become the focus of
00:07international attention after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
00:13Overnight, Minneapolis on fire.
00:16The situation here in Santa Monica, California is very fluid.
00:19A storm of anti-racism protests captured in dramatic news reports
00:24spread across the United States and the world.
00:27A very serious escalation of disorder outside Bounding Street.
00:31And when this storm landed in Bristol, a statue of a slave trader was torn down.
00:46The world's media descended on Bristol.
00:53In another British city, this is Bristol.
00:56A statue of a 17th century slave owner was taken down, tossed into the water.
01:06Caught in the eye of the storm was the city's mayor, Marvin Rees, the first directly elected black mayor of
01:14a city in Europe.
01:15Mr. Rees, do you support the police in their search for those responsible for criminal damage?
01:20Or do you support the tearing down of the statue?
01:23But putting up those kind of binary options really doesn't help us navigate a complicated world, Krishna.
01:29There is something horrific about having a slave trader's statue in the middle of your city.
01:34And yet there are people who feel that they're losing a piece of themselves with the statue being hauled down
01:38in it.
01:39All those things are true at the same time.
01:43Brilliant. As far as I'm concerned, every time I've seen it, I felt sick.
01:47It's just an excuse for premeditated violence.
01:49It was Bristol coming together and saying, you know what, we're going to support each other.
01:52How many statues are we going to destroy? How many buildings do we deface before we've got history looking the
01:57way we wanted?
01:58You can't live with it. Why do you come and live here?
02:01This film began following the mayor and the people of Bristol in the immediate aftermath of one of the defining
02:08moments of 2020.
02:10I'm hoping that we stay away from over street conflict.
02:14If we don't handle the next few days and weeks well, then clearly there's going to be a lot more
02:19dry tin there, as it were, for people to put sparks to.
02:37It's been five days since the Colston statue was taken down.
02:41And the international media's focus on the mayor's office is continuing to build.
02:52New York Times, Local Government Chronicle, Globe and Mail Canada, Channel 9, yeah, these are all to come, Channel 9
02:58Australia, Canadian radio.
03:01Can you hear me? This is Mass Control, English Channel, Al Jazeera.
03:04How are you? You okay?
03:06The weird thing about the media is, while everyone else is talking about trying to bring Bristol together, it's in
03:12their interest to prolong the conflict.
03:13We do need to acknowledge how this has divided people.
03:17What do you say to those who say that we're dismantling the historical context of the way British society is
03:23built?
03:24Well, I say we're not. The danger is we get caught up in symbolic acts that don't change underlying conditions.
03:31Just describe for me your emotions when you saw the statue being taken down the way it was.
03:37As a city official, I cannot ignore criminal damage.
03:39But as I've shared, I could not pretend that I was anything other than affronted by the statue.
03:47Colston may have owned one of my ancestors, so for the statue to have gone in the grand arc of
03:52history, this was the right thing.
03:54Right.
03:55It's just been non-stop. It's been 100 miles an hour for three, four or five days from dealing with
04:00the actual issues around the statue and the harbour, dealing with the issues in the city.
04:04Trying to hold that together while making sure that what Marvin talks about in the media is about a much
04:09wider issue here and about how the city needs to learn to live with its differences.
04:13And he did Al Jazeera, which is important. It talks to some communities in the city in particular.
04:18But then the New York Times is like, that's profile, isn't it? That's a chance to talk to the world
04:22about some of these issues from Bristol.
04:24And that's quite big. But to me, the most important interview is Radio Bristol.
04:28There's an opportunity to start to widen this debate out. Let's talk to everyone in the city and understand why
04:33they feel the way they do.
04:35Simple question to start with. The management of Colston Hall described the name as Toxic in 2017, decided then to
04:41change it.
04:43The statue's been debated for years. Do you regret not taking it down?
04:47That's not a simple question, John, to be honest.
04:49I think it is, actually.
04:51We have a number of challenges facing us. Austerity, the financial situation, the housing crisis, child poverty.
04:56And racism is about those underlying conditions.
04:59But if you have a top ten list of priorities that you're going to put in place to tackle racism,
05:04taking down a statue, you wouldn't be in that top ten list.
05:07But that statue is the start of something, and that could have been led by you.
05:13John, I think, I mean, there's another piece of irony here, that if after becoming the first directly elected black
05:19politician in Europe,
05:20suddenly the statue's my fault.
05:22I've totally seen nothing you...
05:23No, I'm not saying it's your fault, Marvin Rees. That's not what I'm saying, and you know that.
05:28I actually found that quite demoralising.
05:30So rather than saying, wait, Marvin, we've got some people who were elated that the statue had been torn down,
05:37some people who sympathise with it being torn down, but don't agree with the way it happened,
05:42and there were some people who were dismayed and feeling alienated.
05:45How do you as a mayor hold the city together?
05:47What he wants to say is, do you regret not taking the statue down?
05:50That's not trying to get insight on what we're doing with the city.
05:52It's the smash-and-grab, simplistic, superficial, search for a clip for the bulletin that says,
05:58the mayor of Bristol admits he regrets not taking a statue down.
06:01Most people don't interact with real arguments, they interact with the journalistic interpretation of the arguments,
06:05and they're getting underserved.
06:10I don't know how to look unreliased.
06:13It's a very dangerous moment for me, I think.
06:16I'm black, I'm mixed race, I'm from a poor background, working-class, welfare-class background.
06:24And these questions of race, belonging, white people feeling disenfranchised,
06:30political system not working for poor people, it's all swirling around.
06:34The danger is that the conversation on race remains incredibly immature,
06:40and then I get sucked into the vortex of being a black politician who only talks about race issues,
06:45and I'm not seen as a serious politician.
06:48That's the danger I'm in at the moment.
06:57Why are we wiping out our history, made our city the way it is?
07:02Once we start down this route, where does it end?
07:05I'm not saying what he did was right, it was extremely wrong, that was back then.
07:10Do we start burning down Colston Tower?
07:12Do we start going into the cathedral and digging up the graves of all the plantation over there?
07:29In one of Bristol's museums, staff are tasked with the conservation of the statue.
07:37So here he is.
07:40The idea is at the moment just to stabilise him as he was when he was put into the dock,
07:46but the paint can flake off, so we're just trying to stop that happening.
07:50Well, it's quite apt, isn't it? The red paint on his hands, he's got blood on his hands, you know,
07:56seems quite appropriate.
07:58Edward Colston made much of his fortune from slavery,
08:01and he served as deputy governor of the Royal African Company in London.
08:07In his home city of Bristol, he was also a member of the Society of Merchant Venturers.
08:14They were instrumental in establishing Bristol as a slave trading port,
08:19and their members owned plantations in the Caribbean.
08:24In 1895, decades after slavery had been abolished,
08:29members of the Merchant Venturers were among those who paid for the statue and gifted it to the city.
08:36Well into the 21st century, they continued to support annual celebrations to honour Colston as a philanthropist
08:43who had donated money to many of Bristol's institutions.
08:51The city has, over the years, done a big and intentional job of elevating Colston.
08:58He's been chosen as the person to kind of embody the spirit of the city,
09:04and the mythology around it has been stitched into the city.
09:08It's no wonder that changing that causes people a sense of imbalance.
09:29I have every sympathy for everybody who have been trying to get that statue moved for years.
09:38But I did find it a little bit over the top, and I was a bit sad to see him
09:44topple into the harbour.
09:47That was my childhood, that was my growing up.
09:49And it's a shame in that way, but that's just sentimental attachment.
10:00I joined Colston's Girls in 1959, believe it or not.
10:05There were no fees in those days, it was non-fee paying.
10:09And it was supported partly by the local authority and partly by the Merchant Venturers.
10:19That's me there, when I was head girl.
10:24It was a wonderful education, because everyone was encouraged to feel that they could do what they wanted to do
10:32and be whatever they wanted to be, and be mouthy, which as you can see, has worked.
10:38It was quite liberating, I suppose, in that way for girls in those days.
10:44So this is my friend Pammy, and myself, with our homemade wreath, putting it on Colston's tomb.
10:55To give thanks for the foundation of the school is what it was all about.
10:59Commemoration Day, it was called Commemoration.
11:02Everybody used to call it Commem for short.
11:04We all had to go to the cathedral and have this service,
11:07and then afterwards we'd go and throw our bronze chrysanthemums at that statue.
11:12I think we were told it was his favourite flower.
11:15I cannot remember being told our founder made his money in slaves.
11:21He was seen as a philanthropist.
11:26In the next couple of weeks, Colston Girls' School are going to change their name.
11:30How do you feel about that?
11:31Well, I can see it had to happen because the political climate has changed.
11:38I'm all supportive of the Black Lives Matter.
11:40But I don't know where you stop.
11:43There are statues of all kinds of so-called great and wonderful people.
11:47Nelson and Churchill and all that.
11:49And they've all done horrible things.
11:51It's a shame that people feel that everything has to be erased.
11:56What you need to get rid of is the racism underpinning all this,
12:01and not just focus on some guy from the 18th century.
12:12The mayor's office has received news that a demonstration in direct response to Black Lives Matter
12:18and the toppling of Colston has been planned at one of the city's war memorials.
12:24I've just realised I've got a call in my diary, 10 to 11, to discuss the protest.
12:32Which protest?
12:33The football.
12:35Football plans.
12:36From City, Rovers, Swindon and Cardiff.
12:39Yeah.
12:39Yeah.
12:40There's big signs of that all over the place.
12:42Risk levels, medium at the moment.
12:44They're expecting 200 to 300.
12:46I feel a bit concerned by this thing about the football supporters coming in from elsewhere.
12:50I mean, this demonstration at the moment seems to be centred around defending the Cenotaph, right?
12:55I mean, nobody in their right mind is going to want to attack the Cenotaph, right?
12:58So, we need to make sure that those demonstrations are about what they're about,
13:02and I'll be much more comfortable with Bristolians at the heart of them.
13:04That's my real feel for that.
13:19Protesters, including local bikers and football fans, have begun gathering at the Cenotaph,
13:24just a few yards from where the Colston statue stood.
13:27It's about left wing and right wing, not right.
13:30It ain't even about left wing and right wing.
13:31It's about everyone coming together and dying.
13:38Some of the protesters approach Colston's plinth, where there are placards and messages
13:43left by the Black Lives Matter demonstrators.
13:47So, I thought that's a mess.
13:49That should never be there.
13:51I thought that statue should never be pulled down anyway.
13:54Not without some democratic process at the very least.
13:56You are Mr. Churchill!
13:59I thought you are Mr. Churchill!
14:01You are Mr. Churchill!
14:14Hi, Marvin. How are you, mate?
14:17Yeah, I'm right, Joe.
14:18Is this a tough time, the weekend?
14:20Yeah.
14:22The weekend's a little bit complicated.
14:24We'd have some far right, but not everyone there was far right.
14:27But we only had two arrests.
14:29No big tear-ups, which is helpful.
14:32One of the things I really want is for white working-class Bristolians to understand
14:37the interdependence of their story with black Bristolians, right?
14:40The common ground.
14:41You've got the history of slavery in that, but women, working-class people, tobacco factories,
14:46that's the rich area for me, you know, that we share history and our struggles are the same.
14:57I went down there last minute.
15:00Everyone's over there shouting, there's only one Winston Churchill.
15:09I've walked over, some lads give me a footy up, I've climbed up, and some lad shouted, Nigel, there's a
15:13flag.
15:14So I've leant down, got the British flag.
15:16And I remember the video of a black lad in London burning our British flag.
15:21And this woman pleading, begging with him to not, saying, please don't burn our British flag.
15:25And so I thought my granddad took a fight for this war and this flag.
15:29This is our flag and we're proud of it.
15:30This is our country, we're proud of our country.
15:33The one about black and white, the one about race, it was about our heritage.
15:39White people got hurt as well.
15:41Let me tell you now, when you're shouting, when you're shouting white privilege,
15:46that makes me sad because, you know, you ain't seen the way I grew up.
15:56This is Gatcom Road. Quite a few people have died on this road.
16:00A friend of mine was murdered by a couple of my other friends.
16:04Just literally up from that corner leaving the pub, they shot him dead.
16:09There was a lad killed by a 15-year-old boy pushing a bike out in front of him.
16:14End of the road, people was killed by police back in 1991.
16:18This is where I grew up down here.
16:21We lived in the corner down there and my mum didn't work.
16:24My stepdad didn't work.
16:26We used to drive round on Nick Motorbikes like when I was like nine.
16:30Constantly getting took home by the police.
16:32My mind was ruined.
16:34It had domestic violence and drugs, what we're seeing every day.
16:38I couldn't concentrate to be educated because I had so many problems back home, you know.
16:47I didn't know that statue was a slave trader, imported loads of slaves.
16:52No one cares for a slave trader.
16:53They just cared about how it was done.
16:56I think race is overshadowing the main problem of poverty.
17:01That's where it all is because, you know, the whites got it hard as well.
17:06It's not just the blacks who got it hard.
17:07The whites equally got it just as hard as what they have.
17:10It's not about black and white.
17:11It's about rich and poor.
17:13That's the difference.
17:14That's what people need to understand.
17:23Following the protest at the cenotaph, a provocative statue mocking the demonstrators has been left near the plinth.
17:32Okay, and Sasuke, I want to put this chav-type statue into the MGM.
17:37A chav statue?
17:38Yeah, have you seen it?
17:39No.
17:40So it's been chained to a laparist.
17:42It's really quite offensive, actually.
17:44No, I don't like that.
17:45No, me neither.
17:46It's a classic middle class definition about racism.
17:49It's offensive.
17:50Yeah.
17:50And the spoiler is saying you're with your therapist thing.
17:52It's so clearly, like, you're racist chavs.
17:55There's a snobbery in racism, isn't there?
18:01The placing of the statue of the chav, right, the working class icon, I feel hugely uncomfortable with it.
18:07I can, from my background, associate much more, I'm a Bristol Rovers supporter, right?
18:11I'll turn up for football.
18:12I'll go to football and I'll be talking to, drinking with and supporting the team with those same people, right?
18:17The lack of law and order can be very frightening for people, particularly vulnerable people or poor people.
18:21And I understand the fear that people have about losing their city when they see statues coming down and all
18:26the rest of it.
18:33When people describe Bristol, they always describe it with this bohemian, individual, independent mood, right?
18:40That's not, I don't see Bristol either.
18:45Slum clearances and the war play huge parts in the way Bristol shapes itself.
18:49You have got council estates in a ring around the city.
18:52And that means the city centre has become increasingly gentrified.
18:56And so the people who come and live in the city centre and experience Otwells and Clifton and Redland and
19:02Southfield,
19:02that's a very different Bristol to the one I grew up in.
19:06When I go home to Loch Lys and I visit my sisters, that hasn't changed.
19:10It doesn't look any different.
19:11If anything, it might even be poorer.
19:13Marvin's background is very similar.
19:14These are two different cities, right?
19:19I've often heard people describe over the years, this is an incredible place.
19:24And it is in many ways.
19:26But it can be a very hard city for people.
19:28And it was a hard city for my mum.
19:33Mum had me in 1972.
19:35White woman, brown baby, unmarried, no money.
19:38So it was tough.
19:40Before I was born, people were telling her she should have me aborted.
19:44And then when I was born, she was told if she was a good woman, she'd put me up for
19:47adoption.
19:49Housing wasn't secure.
19:50We ended up in a refuge for a little bit.
19:51We lived on an estate on the edge of town, Lance Western.
19:55And I watched my mum struggle, you know, just to pay bills.
19:59I always remember the day a bill came in for £88.
20:02I have that number etched into my head.
20:04I probably was about seven years old.
20:06And it was like the world stopped.
20:08We had this £88 bill and we just did not know how we were going to pay.
20:13So yeah, I remember that.
20:27So this is my flat I lived in with my mum.
20:31And then my sister came along as well.
20:32In 1976, Dion came.
20:34That window was my bedroom window.
20:37And the van, the nursery van used to come and collect us and it would park here.
20:42And rather than going out the door, because I like my kind of sense of action,
20:46I used to jump out the window.
20:48And then run up the slope and jump in the van.
20:52Experiencing racism down here was mainly about being called names.
20:57Blackie Sambo, chocolate and all those kind of things.
21:00My mum used to say, well, you might tell him you might be black, but your name's not Sambo.
21:04I never ever wanted my mum to come out and get involved.
21:07Because I didn't want my mum ending up in a confrontation herself.
21:12I look back on some of the things I lived as a child and at the time, I wish I
21:17hadn't gone through them.
21:18But it's left me with a number of things in my politics.
21:20One is I'm quite pragmatic.
21:23You know, there is the perfect world and there's the world as you'd like it to be,
21:26and there's the world we have to work with.
21:28And if I can be honest with you, and this is a very dangerous thing to say,
21:32I do carry around quite a lot of quiet, controlled anger.
21:36Now, I say that's dangerous because it's not safe for black people to admit that they're angry.
21:40In the extreme circumstances, it gets you arrested and the United States gets you killed.
21:45But I am angry.
21:46How can you not be angry when every day people like me,
21:50and I don't just mean in terms of skin colour, but I mean in class background,
21:53are born destined to die earlier than others,
21:56to become unwell before other people, to get poorer outcomes from our education system,
22:00more likely to end up mentally unwell.
22:03You've got to be angry about that.
22:12It's been ten days since the statue was taken down.
22:16The national lockdown is being lifted,
22:19but the mayor's usual face-to-face meetings with the public are postponed indefinitely.
22:26Hello, everyone. Welcome to another Facebook Live.
22:30As of 4pm today, we've had 720 confirmed cases of Covid-19.
22:37What we don't have in the city is a meaningful public transport system.
22:40Brought schemes forward from Hengrove, North Western, St. Anne's, 9,000 homes come through.
22:47We are opening up our toilets in parks, free school meals over the summer holidays.
22:52It's great to see Marcus Ratchford get real traction with government.
22:55We're launching the history commission, whether it be around black people, Asian people,
22:59women, working class, unions.
23:01We want to tell the full Bristol story.
23:03We clearly are going out, continuing to fix potholes.
23:10While there's been no further confrontation on the streets,
23:13the mayor's office faces questions about how it's dealt with the controversy surrounding the Colston statue.
23:21Steve Alexis asked in advance on Facebook,
23:24Now that it has been dumped, we have a totally divided city.
23:27Will the council accept part of the blame for creating that division?
23:30Firstly, the council has caused divisions, but those divisions existed irrespective of the council.
23:35It's also worth sharing that even if the statue had been brought down in a formal way,
23:39it would have caused divisions. So we have to be quite rounded in this.
23:46Over the past few days, there has been a sharp increase in correspondence personally directed at Marvin,
23:52with over 1,500 messages received since the statue was removed.
23:59So I'm just going through all the posts that the mayor's received in the last week,
24:03and I'm just currently sorting it out in terms of what's kind of positive comment
24:08and what's negative comment and what is stuff that we need to report to the police.
24:14So, so far we've got kind of even piles, I would say,
24:18but we've definitely got some stuff which needs to be reported.
24:22It's very, very abusive.
24:25Yeah, okay.
24:28Africans are pack animals.
24:30Ninog lives don't matter.
24:33I think you missed off a G.
24:35I was supposed to say,
24:35Nignog lives don't matter.
24:37So you probably could do a dumb and a spell check.
24:39Someone has taken the time to send you a book.
24:44Jolly Little Numbers.
24:45Yeah.
24:46I think it's something from the 50s.
24:47Along with a little pin badge as well.
24:51So a gollywog pin badge.
24:54And ten little nigger boys jumping in a line.
24:57One fixed the hole, then there were nine.
24:59Okay.
25:00So it's racist subtraction.
25:02Yeah, okay.
25:03Yeah.
25:04All right.
25:06But it's got nothing to do with what we're trying to do.
25:07It's just sad people.
25:09This guy's even put his address on it.
25:11It's just very unhappy people writing stuff, so what can you do?
25:13Yeah.
25:14I suppose the most useful thing about this is that,
25:17you know, those kind of that doughy-eyed reality
25:19in which people think the world has moved on
25:21and it's totally different to what it was when we were younger.
25:23People get a wake-up call to say actually he's still out there.
25:28I don't know how I feel about it.
25:29I find it irritating.
25:31It's the, you know, it's the classic kind of keyboard warrior type thing,
25:34you know?
25:35And that irritates me because it's pretty kind of gutless.
25:40I've always had that back of thought though.
25:42What if this is a serious person?
25:43And then I think about my family.
25:45You know, I've got three children and a wife.
25:47I've got to do the responsible thing for my family.
25:50I don't, I don't really sleep over it.
25:52It's just what it is.
25:56The mayor's office has just received news
25:59of an act of racially motivated vandalism.
26:03You know that Scipio headstone in Henry?
26:05Yeah, the slave kid.
26:06Yeah, it's been vandalised, it's been smashed.
26:08In Henry Church?
26:09Yeah.
26:09Seriously?
26:10Yeah.
26:11That's pretty, that's a big piece of Bristol history.
26:13Yeah.
26:13Oh look, that's such a beautiful grave.
26:17That's really sad.
26:20There is a lot of agitation in the city.
26:24That's actually quite concerning, yeah.
26:26What does that say?
26:28Put Colston statue back or things will really heat up.
26:31Yeah, that's a few agitators, isn't it?
26:35The pulling down of Colston statue was not an anti-white oppressive move.
26:40It was a move about toppling someone who exploited other people.
26:43That is an overtly racist move.
26:45I mean, it's clearly meant to be an attack on,
26:47on black people in that sense.
26:49But actually that's the attack on Bristol's history.
26:51So it's a, it's a, it's a concern.
27:01The mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, says the tombstone of an African born slave has been smashed in two.
27:07The memorial to the slave known as Scipio Africanus has been in the graveyard of St. Mary's Church in Henbury
27:13since 1720.
27:15Mr. Rees has appealed to residents not to go down what he called a tit for tat route.
27:29I didn't realise he was just 18.
27:32I've got children under the age of 18 and the thought of someone taking them away and turning them into
27:36a servant accessory is just horrifying, actually.
27:41I don't think it's possible as a human being to engage in horrible acts without it having some kind of
27:47impact on you.
27:48I mean, this isn't even just an abstract statue, this is a grave that's being desecrated in many ways.
27:53There must be some degree of discomfort, or at least I would, I would hope so.
28:08Scipio Africanus, I'm sorry on who did this to your grave. I hope it's restored soon. RIP.
28:19What we have in the city is a contrast. The pulling down of a statue of someone who elevated themselves
28:25and a humble resting place for someone who is one of the world's servants and one of the world's enslaved.
28:33The contrast couldn't be starker, really.
28:39The smashing of this headstone, it just goes against what I consider to be universally right.
28:44This is the smashing of a headstone of one of the world's put upon, one of the world's voiceless.
28:51And it hit me deep, really. And it just brought into real sight for me that we're not in control
28:57of this world, you know.
28:58We can do our best to try and manage it, but things happen that are not in our control.
29:24I've grown up in an era where political apathy seems like an easy thing for people to fall into, including
29:28myself.
29:36George Floyd's death, God rest the man's soul, but it's the sort of thing that is needed at times to
29:42really shape people from a bit of a slumber.
29:45Black Floyd's mother! Black Floyd's mother! Black Floyd's mother!
29:50I guess that moment on the plinth was me really being politicised for the first time.
29:57I was trying not to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of people.
30:01If this is just the moment, let's go home now. If this is just the moment, what are we here
30:07for?
30:09I ended up in a band. We moved from Bath to Bristol just for the music scene, really.
30:15And I just fell in love with the place. Like, it's been seven, eight years now being in the city
30:20and feeling like it's home, feeling like it's been a place I can really grow as an artist.
30:25We're a very divided city. Though we seem multicultural from the outside, we've got pockets of Jamaica, we've got pockets
30:31of Somalia.
30:32Do you know what I mean? You can't not notice Clifton on the top of the hill looking out at
30:35the rest of...
30:37Just after we voted to leave Brexit, walking through the bear pit, someone decided it was OK to make monkey
30:43chants towards me.
30:45If that moment can galvanise a racist to open his mouth, if Trump getting into office can galvanise America, racist
30:51America to come out of the woodwork,
30:53some stuff that Boris is doing here, if the bigots feel emboldened to open their mouth, this moment has to
30:58make us feel big enough to open our mouths.
31:01Look.
31:02Black is beautiful, black is excellent. Black is pain, black is joy, black is evident.
31:07It's working twice as hard as the people, you know you're better than, cause you need to do double what
31:11they do so you can level them.
31:13Black is so much deeper than just African-American, our heritage been severed, you never got to experiment with family
31:19trees.
31:20Can they teach you about famine and greed? They show you pictures of our fam on their knees.
31:23Tell us we used to be barbaric.
31:25Stuff like this is wicked to get people out, but in between all the marches and all that going on,
31:31we need something that's concrete.
31:33This city feels like it very much responds to the energy that's inside it.
31:38It's a very charged place and I don't want the energy that we have to just dissipate.
31:43I don't want to have to have another person lose their life for this sort of response to come again,
31:47so let's take the energy that's there now and do something with it.
31:51As our first cutting our teeth in activism, we have been blocking the sale of the Rastafari Cultural Centre in
31:58St Pauls.
31:59A space that was gifted for anti-racism work.
32:02The council are now going to tell us that today, in 2020, there's no need for this space.
32:08Can't let it run.
32:10If we stay passionate for the things that are happening in our community, what hope for the world?
32:21Welcome to today's meeting. Full details of questions submitted are on the council's website and will be displayed on the
32:29screen as we work through them.
32:32Under Covid restrictions, the City Council's monthly meetings are being held remotely.
32:38Green at question one. Councillor Lake, do you have a supplementary?
32:43Yes, I do.
32:45Since Marvin became mayor, Councillor Cleo Lake has been critical of a lack of support for Bristol's black communities.
32:53My question was directly about investment and support for our black-led institutions that already exist,
33:00and whether we can get some commitment from the council to ensure that decades of under-resourcing is resolved.
33:09So first of all, you specifically named the number of organisations.
33:14I can't bypass a process to specifically say from the outset that what we will do is get money to
33:21those specific organisations.
33:22That wouldn't be, you know, a fair and a just thing to do.
33:26Well, it's not easy to be the overall leader of a city, let's be honest about that.
33:32I'm sure coming into office, sections of Bristol would have thought,
33:35well, he's just gonna do X, Y and Z for these people because he's from there, or this and that
33:40and the other, which hasn't happened.
33:42Whilst he may, as an administration, come up with schemes like the One City Office and Stepping Up,
33:49which are award-winning programmes or whatever, they're all very well, but they're not radical and they're not revolutionary.
33:55We haven't got a revolutionary mayor. It's the bottom line.
33:59Do you think you get given a harder time from the black community because you're black?
34:04Not everyone. Not everyone.
34:06Sometimes people can understand who they are in the fight, but the moment someone says,
34:11all right, well, come sit at the table with me and let's come up with a solution.
34:14They don't know about making solutions. What they know about is shouting analysis and criticisms.
34:19I think it comes also from sometimes quite a weak understanding of what politics is.
34:23When you get elected, you don't get a blank piece of paper and you just write out your wishlist and
34:27get it all.
34:27It's a very challenging world.
34:30The purpose of being elected is not just to get a seat by which you can come and ask me
34:34to do stuff that you could actually do yourself.
34:36But as I said, come and see me in between meetings. Please, you know, the theatre of an unrepresentative full
34:42council meeting.
34:43It's two weeks ago, Marvin. I've been ignored. Go and have a look at all the meetings we had before.
34:47What would you have done differently?
34:50I would have, if I had the opportunity and the power to make certain decisions,
34:56then I would have apologised as a city for our role historically and commit to reparations in whatever way that
35:05I came through.
35:06And I would have removed the statue.
35:10What do you make of Marvin's defence if you would just be seen as the black mayor who kind of
35:14came in and took that down?
35:15What would you mean?
35:16What's wrong with that?
35:17What's wrong with being the black mayor who came and took that down?
35:23The day after the statue was pulled down, the police launched a criminal investigation.
35:31Three weeks later, one group of anti-racism campaigners gathers outside City Hall to protest.
35:39So the tearing down of the statue was not a criminal act.
35:43It was an expression of anger, not only with the killing of George Floyd,
35:48but also at the complacency of Bristol's leading representatives over three centuries
35:53for the crimes that have been committed against black people.
35:56The city council and business community should now make a public apology
36:01for the role the city has played in the slave trade.
36:07So you've got 50 white people calling on the black mayor to apologise for slavery.
36:15It's a fascinating situation.
36:17If I was to step up and apologise, what would that mean?
36:20Am I to stand in front of a group of white progressive activists apologising for slavery?
36:28It's a little bit more complicated than that, I think.
36:32Marvin Rees, what his administration has done is give a statement of evidence to Avon and Somerset police.
36:41Those young people that took that political act are now at risk of being arrested.
36:48The prosecution of people who are involved in bringing the statue down is a really tricky one for the council.
36:55It's such a sensitive and emotional subject and everyone has a different opinion
37:00that you're never going to really win whichever way it goes.
37:03For the police are in a tough spot because the whole world saw that technically a crime was committed.
37:08For us, we were asked whether we could give a statement, which was really a fact-based, evidential statement,
37:15literally that the statue was there in the morning and then at the end of the day it was in
37:19the harbour
37:20and we hadn't given permission for that to happen.
37:22Given the kind of toxic history of Colston in the city, could you have chosen not to have made the
37:29report?
37:29No, it's criminal damage. You've got to put the report in.
37:35Politicians don't get to choose when the criminal justice system is and is not enacted.
37:40That's very dangerous. The police do not get to choose when and not to investigate.
37:44Ultimately what happens is up to the Crown Prosecution Service and the judge.
38:17Just before five o'clock this morning, the empty plinth, which used to carry the statue of the slave trader
38:22Edward Colston in Bristol,
38:24was replaced with a sculpture of one of the protesters whose anger brought him down.
38:35I think it's a really good statue, to be honest, in comparison to what was there.
38:39It's very nice that someone from London has come down and put that there.
38:42Yeah, we love it. I mean, it's so exciting to wake up to the news that Mark Quinn has installed
38:47it.
38:47So we had to rush down, you know, before it gets taken down, but hopefully it won't.
38:52Yeah, hopefully it won't, but we don't know, do we?
38:54It does a whole lot more to represent, you know, where Bristol stands on the Black Lives Matter issue.
39:06There's the bikers. They're doing that all over. Whenever anything to do with Black Lives Matter is going on,
39:11the bikers are driving around revving their engines.
39:14Frank in Hotwells, your thoughts on this new statue going up?
39:17It's a farce. It's an absolute farce.
39:19Now what if another section of the same society turn up and rip this one down and throw that in
39:25the docks?
39:28You have one new message.
39:31This is a complaint about the statue, which is a symbol of black power in the United States that has
39:40no place in Bristol.
39:42I've just got off the phone to Alex. He's telling me they're anticipating a backlash.
39:46That backlash may not just be symbolic on statues. It could be in the lives of real brown people in
39:52the city.
39:53We have to act before there is another action.
39:56Yeah.
39:58All lives matter, my love. All lives.
40:01A democracy is you vote to take down this statue.
40:06You don't rip it down.
40:09So I had an email saying it's going to be on Channel 4 News tonight.
40:12So they were obviously there to film it.
40:14I had a call from BBC Radio Bristol who think we're in on it.
40:18We need to be clear we're not, don't we?
40:19Well I know I have been clear that we're not, but it looks like we've given them permission and we've
40:23been part of this, like, secrecy.
40:26I am compelled to write to you to encourage the immediate and quiet removal of the undemocratic and divisive statue
40:32of Jen Reid.
40:33I hereby object to the BLM statue that has been illegally mounted in Bristol.
40:37I find this offensive and unlawful.
40:39Time for Marvin to get off the fence and get his act together and do his job.
40:42This is a really beautiful symbol of what the top lane of the Costa statue represents.
40:46Take it down before it gets ripped down.
40:48I think you better take it down before the white statue protectors come down.
40:51Then you will have a full-scale riot.
40:53Sod the decking statue.
40:54What are you doing to save mass redundancies?
40:57The police, their intel is it will probably be attacked tonight.
41:01Because it's made of resin, it's dead easy to smash up.
41:05So there's a council team ready to remove it.
41:08So I guess our decision is based on this timeline of it being attacked.
41:11So play it out, right? What if it does get smashed?
41:15Yeah.
41:17We've been warning for the start. We've been very clear.
41:19We want the space.
41:21We've been very clear about opportunists jumping into the situation to try and make their name and tell their story,
41:27right?
41:27Yeah.
41:28Sometimes you need to allow people to feel a bit of the pain.
41:31If it gets smashed, isn't that just another bit of PR for him?
41:35So I've just had a phone call from someone who says if the mayor doesn't take it down,
41:39him and 20 of his mates from the south of England are going to come up to Bristol
41:44and they're going to take it down themselves.
41:46What are you going to do is stand up for prejudice and racism.
41:49That was not voted for and we didn't let that go.
41:54It doesn't need to be voted for.
41:56Occasionally, people power takes over.
41:59Your word is not heard.
42:00And that is a symbol against racism.
42:03Do you think things have ever got better in the world without someone breaking the door?
42:06And your stand view, by arguing against it, are in fact pushing forward that type of culture.
42:14If you speak out, you're labelled as a racist.
42:16No one here labelled as a racist.
42:17No one said that, I think.
42:19My concern is there's a huge voice in the city who think it's absolutely wonderful.
42:23Yeah, rightly, probably mostly a middle class white audience are like,
42:25oh, it's brilliant, isn't it? Great, isn't it? Artistic.
42:28And then it gets smashed and then it's more vitriol aimed at the people that have done it
42:33and it's still not bringing those groups together.
42:37I don't know.
42:38Sometimes people need an opportunity to see where things could go, right?
42:42The question is, it's got a decent statue, obviously it's a decent sculpture, of a black woman.
42:47Right.
42:48Therefore, the image of that being smashed...
42:49Of a black woman being smashed, yeah.
42:51...is strong, isn't it?
42:53What if people decide they want to put a rope around it, pull it down and drag it into the
42:57harbour?
42:58I just think that'll be horrific.
42:59I'm just worried as well about the woman it's hot of.
43:01She is local, she's now going to be on the news, and I just worry that she perhaps
43:05hasn't fully understood the implications that could come back to her and her family.
43:13There ain't no clean decisions here.
43:15My sense is, relax about it as much as we can.
43:19Relax.
43:21You've made a statement.
43:22We'll give you the, you know, you can have the plinth for the day.
43:26You know, you've had your time, you've had your bit on Channel 4,
43:29and then we, you know, and then we take it tomorrow.
43:33And we'll say, okay, so we'll look after it.
43:35But by the way, Mark, this is the cost in terms of our staff time,
43:38how much it costs in terms of police time, right?
43:41We'll send them the bill for that, because if we pay for it, it comes out of our budget.
43:45But he needs to know, you can't run around doing what you want without,
43:48without accounting for the consequences, be the social consequences or the financial consequences.
43:52And that's, I find that frustrating.
43:55So let's, let's do that.
43:57Andy, how are you doing?
43:58You a fan of the London arts world, are you?
44:00Yeah.
44:02My sense is that we leave it till tomorrow.
44:06All right, Andy, cheers, take care. Bye.
44:13I think an empty plent is one of the most powerful statements we have at this moment in time in
44:17a city,
44:18because it represents a city that's taking time to stop and think about its future.
44:23The best way forward for the city would be to begin to come to terms with its full history,
44:29and within that context, be able to have a more informed view on who it wants to honour, if anyone.
44:35This circumvents that process.
44:37Now, I recognise that it's a, it's an incredible statue. I recognise that.
44:43But as a political leader, you don't have the luxury of just stopping at the first bus stop of meaning,
44:49when you see an event happen.
44:51You have to think, okay, how is this going to be interpreted by other people,
44:55and what are the unintended consequences?
45:08We just got back from holiday, escaping Bristol for a couple of weeks, which was fantastic.
45:15Within an hour, get the police knocking on the door.
45:20The police have warned Marvin and his wife Kirsten,
45:23that there are direct threats being made to their family.
45:26They've had anti-terrorist intelligence, like those three words together.
45:31It's like, what?
45:33They say it, it's low level, but we want you aware.
45:38And you're thinking, okay, yes.
45:42But your head's spinning, because you're thinking of all the what-ifs, you know, Joe Cox.
45:47The stories you hear of acid just being thrown in people's faces.
45:51People know where we live, they know our address, because it was on the ballot, which is infuriating as well.
45:57I showed you some moves.
45:59You did show me.
46:01Yeah, we have weapons in various parts of our house.
46:04If I come downstairs, I'm not coming downstairs to lose.
46:07I'm coming downstairs to win.
46:10We had a threat about five weeks ago, so we were already in conversation with upping security a bit more
46:21from the last.
46:22So each threat, it becomes a little bit more secure.
46:25With the kids, they saw the first threat, because it was blatantly written out, Marvin must die, on our sidewalk.
46:35So when I woke up that morning, opened up my daughter's curtains, who's on the front of the house.
46:40I saw it in big, white painting.
46:44Marvin was in the shower.
46:46I was furious.
46:48Have you seen?
46:50And then I wanted to just swear my head off on Facebook.
46:54He's like, don't do it.
46:57So, yeah.
47:00Our neighbour said if he'd seen it first, he would have put a T on the end.
47:04So he would have said Marvin must die it.
47:07But he obviously didn't see it.
47:08So, what is amazing is numerous neighbours said, any issue, you know, you've got your back.
47:16You said that I need to take these, take these, what, these threats more seriously.
47:23You know, I do take them seriously, but necessarily don't show it, and I don't, I don't feel physically threatened
47:28on a day-to-day basis.
47:30Where I get angry, and that is the word, is thinking about my family, Kirsten and the children, people kind
47:37of invading that space.
47:38But that, I think, is a white-black thing too, that Marvin's, he has resilience, because it's not new to
47:46him to be threatened.
47:48Um, and for me it is.
47:53Do you ever think, I wish he didn't do this?
47:57No.
48:01Well, probably.
48:03If I'm honest, yeah, there's, like, being away by the sea.
48:08I grew up by the sea.
48:09So, yeah, I want to escape.
48:12Run away.
48:14But also, you've got to do something in life, not just swim every day in the sea.
48:24The threats to Marvin are part of a rise in racist incidents reported in the city over the summer.
48:33Sorry, I've seen a backlash to both the toppling of the statue, but also when Jen Reid's statue went up.
48:40Today I've had about four referrals.
48:43Eggs thrown at the house was one of them, cars being attacked and damaged, windows being put through.
48:49We had a mum who'd just moved from one area from racial harassment, had moved to another area, and the
48:55son had been threatened with being stabbed.
48:58And then she'd had an air gun shot through the window over her and her baby's head in the sitting
49:03room.
49:04One referral came in today where a child was in a park and they were attacked by the mother of
49:12some other children in that park.
49:13And they were throttled and told that I'm going to send you back to the cotton fields and I'm going
49:18to burn your family's house down.
49:20And you can see the language there is linked to slavery.
49:28While Marvin was on holiday, one racist attack left a young black man with life-threatening injuries.
49:36A hospital worker has been left scarred and frightened for his safety after being seriously injured in a racially aggravated
49:43hit-and-run.
49:44The 21-year-old was walking to the bus stop after finishing work at Southmead Hospital in Bristol.
49:50Witnesses say a car was driven at him deliberately before two men shouted racial abuse.
50:00We're going out to meet the young man who was attacked.
50:03I mean, you could call it an attempted lynching by some people driving a car into him.
50:08He's out of hospital now and he's back home.
50:12These moments of crisis come, famously it said, crisis comes as both threats and opportunities.
50:20You know, the threat is, if we can't hold it together, that, you know, the incidents would feed on each
50:27other and then it would escalate and our society would disintegrate.
50:32The opportunity, it pulls the lid back, as it were, on our workings and we discover all these weaknesses, these
50:38animosities, hatreds, inequalities in our society.
50:42And we get an opportunity to decide whether we're going to confront them or not.
50:48How is your recovery, Aaron?
50:50Well, it's going good at the moment, like.
50:52Yeah, just keep getting better and better.
50:53But I'm quite an active guy, like, playing football, doing loads of stuff, like going to the studio and do
50:58music as well.
50:59So, just the fact that you can't do all of that no more and you've just been stopped and you're
51:03just in a house now.
51:04It just, it gets to you mentally though, in a way, like, because you just start thinking of it over
51:08and over again.
51:09Yeah.
51:10His first thought was for his mother.
51:12When he was lying on the ground, he couldn't actually contact her because the phone didn't recognize him.
51:18Yeah, he's got that stupid thing in his face recognition.
51:22And the second thought was for everybody else in Bristol to warn them.
51:27Yeah.
51:28We're lucky because he's recovering, but the motive of those people, what they wanted to do to understand and everything,
51:34is horrific.
51:36I don't feel safe for my family, to be honest, or for anyone out there as well, or the black
51:42community.
51:44And I don't want any other family to go through this.
51:47Well, they can do it in broad daylight.
51:49So, who is safe now in the city?
51:52Yeah.
51:54Football is probably one thing I'm going to miss, to be fair, because I don't even know if I can
51:58head a football with all these injuries right now, like.
52:00What's your team in Bristol?
52:02Do you have a Bristol team?
52:03Bristol City.
52:04Yeah.
52:04What about you?
52:06Both of them.
52:08That's the best way to put it, because it can't be on one side.
52:12I've got a list of things here just about trying to make sure you're getting what you need.
52:17Physiotherapy and all that.
52:18The emotional support is important too.
52:21And then we'll talk about how do we keep it high profile with the police.
52:26And then, as much as it means anything, you know, you're not alone in it.
52:30Like, I mean, you were the one who went through the incident.
52:32But it's not invisible.
52:33Yeah.
52:34You know, and there are a lot of people who really care.
52:37After this stuff happened, I just record the song to just like, you feel kind of better when you make
52:41a song or something like that.
52:43And then plus it's spreading awareness and so on as well.
52:45First things first, I'm happy to be alive by one of my G-O-D.
52:49And everyone that helped my family, they've really been through the L-O-T.
52:52I can never understand a racist, what do they hate so B-E-D?
52:56We've been oppressed for a long time and I think about it's S-A-D.
52:59How can you try kill a man for the colour of his skin, man, that's outrageous.
53:03Driving a coin to an innocent guy for no reason, that's so brainless.
53:07Politics is so much, it's such a kind of a crap game.
53:10You know, you try and do your best and all that.
53:12And you've just got this swirl around you of conspiracy, subterfuge, attacks, hitbacks and all this nonsense that goes on.
53:23And every now and again, you get an opportunity to ground it.
53:29The pain and agony his mum must experience, it must be terrifying for her.
53:36And I hate to think what must happen when she lies down at night and she thinks about her children
53:41getting through tomorrow.
53:50In response to the threats to Marvin, security is increased for the mayor's office.
53:56Okay, good morning. My name is Paul Lacey. I'm from A-Burn Somerset Police.
54:00I'm here today to give you a presentation on corrosive substance attacks.
54:05There are some quite graphic images, but it's quite important you understand the effects of what acids and alkalines can
54:12do to a human being.
54:15Over the following months, Black Lives Matter protests continue to be held peacefully in the city.
54:20You mountains build buildings. We are the architects of our future.
54:32Some of the city's institutions renounced their association with Colston.
54:37Colston Hall is renamed Bristol Beacon.
54:41And Colston's girls school becomes Montpellier High School.
54:48We've got a city that's gone through a huge event, very challenging, and we've held ourselves together.
54:55And I'm really proud of the way we've held ourselves together.
54:57That doesn't mean it's easy. It doesn't mean there aren't tensions.
54:59And we've got those fractures, but Bristol's still together.
55:15But nine months after the statue was toppled, a demonstration dubbed Kill the Bill, by opponents of a new law
55:23restricting public protests,
55:25targets a police station a few hundred yards from Colston's plinth.
55:36Bad day. Bad hangover this morning, Marvin. I'm thinking for the city.
55:41Absolutely. It's a shameful day after a year of great pride in Bristol.
55:48You allowed BLM slash Marxists to take down the statue of Colston.
55:53You have allowed the dregs of the Labour membership to protest, defecate in the street and attack the police.
55:59Shame on you, Mr. Mayor.
56:00One of the Conservative councillors wrote an email to all the councillors saying I should be hanging my head in
56:07shame
56:07because my involvement with Black Lives Matter et al, as he referred to it, I guess is the cause of
56:13what's happened today.
56:14I absolutely condemn the violence we saw in Bristol last night.
56:18It was a display of selfish, self-indulgent, self-centred violence.
56:22This last year has been an incredible source of pride, actually.
56:25It's been amazing to be able to talk about how we as a city have navigated incredibly tense situations
56:31and had tense conversations, had the potential for conflict and actually moved through it.
56:38Those people who came and brought violence to Bristol last night tried to steal that from us and it's not
56:44welcome.
56:44I mean, it's a challenging moment.
56:46How we've overcome this year, this year of loss for so many, that's what we should be talking about.
56:52How we stand together and build our future together.
56:56Thank you, Bristol.
57:04Cities are complicated.
57:06People are afraid of tension, but tension in and of itself isn't necessarily bad.
57:12And we've got some choices as a city.
57:14We can ignore it and ultimately try and stuff it back in the box.
57:18We can allow those tensions to be hijacked by ignorance or opportunistic leaders who want to appeal to a base
57:25and get some cheap power.
57:27Or we can engage with that tension and see it as an opportunity to learn and come out stronger at
57:31the other end.
57:37And this really goes to the heart of me.
57:39I've got a fundamental contradiction in my existence, being a mixed race man from a working class background.
57:48Racism is real.
57:49It is real and raw.
57:51There is such a thing called white privilege.
57:52And I'm on the wrong side of that white privilege because I'm not white.
57:55But my white mum did not need a life of privilege.
57:58And I hope that as a city, we can be a place that shows a mature approach to grapple with
58:04those complexities and keep yourselves together.
58:33Data Gut MD
58:34Detials of organisations offering information and support with racism and racist hands,
58:39Hate crime are available at the BBC Action Line website.
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