Blog post by Meghan Tinsley, University of Manchester, UK; Sadia Habib, University of Manchester, UK; Chloe Peacock, University of Sheffield, UK; Ruth Ramsden-Karelse, Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Germany; and Gary Younge, University of Manchester, UK
 
Toppling a monumental, public statue may be powerful, cathartic, or even jarring for those who witness it. As sites of memory and public art, statues are imposing, apparently permanent figures that claim a prominent place in both urban space and collective memory. Toppling these statues overthrows the appearance of stability and authority. It is at least partly because this act was so visually striking that images of cultural activists toppling statues were among the most iconic symbols of the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted across the globe in the summer of 2020.
 
Far less public attention, however, has focused on what has happened to public space since the statues were toppled. Certainly, dethroning slavers and colonisers is an important first step of decolonising history, but it also introduces the question of who, or what, should replace their stories and voices. Similarly, toppling statues of slavers and colonisers in 2020 signalled the beginning of an equally fraught – and ongoing – debate over what to do with newly emptied pedestals and public squares. 

On 8th September 2021, a crowd gathered on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, USA, near the base of its iconic statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The atmosphere in the crowd was jubilant as workers positioned a crane, wrapped the statue in a harness, and finally–after an hour of preparation, a year of court cases, and 131 years of racial terror set in stone–pulled the statue down from its plinth. 
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The equestrian statue of Robert E. Lee, Commander of the Confederate Army, is, and always has been, a symbol of white supremacy. Its removal creates the opportunity to change the meaning of the space it once occupied.  For the past year at the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (University of Manchester), we have interviewed activists, policymakers, and cultural workers involved in contesting fourteen statues of slavers and colonisers in five countries. We have also explored the meanings of statues of empire and colonialism with young people from Manchester Museum’s OSCH Collective who shared how statues of white supremacy in towns and cities they call home impacted their sense of belonging. Our research highlights how anti-racist activists draw from global movements to contest local histories and memories. Equally, we consider how strategies for removing Confederate statues in the US (for example) might provide lessons for challenging imperial statues in the UK.