Many Statues Are Being Pulled Down After Black Lives Matter Protests

Dozens more controversial statues face being pulled down after councils vowed to review their monuments following a series of Black Lives Matter protests.

Two slave trader statues have been pulled down in recent days - one by campaigners at an anti-racism protest and another with the approval of a local authority following a petition.

A statue of slave owner Robert Milligan was removed from its position in the docks he founded at West India Quay, east London, on Tuesday.

This followed demonstrators in Bristol tearing a statue of the slave trader Edward Colston from its plinth and rolling it into the harbour.

Labour-led councils across England and Wales have now agreed to work with their local communities to look at the "appropriateness" of certain monuments and statues.

The review, announced by the Local Government Association's (LGA) Labour group, came as the killing of George Floyd in the US continued to provoke demonstrations against inequality.

Watch as a 150-year-old statue of King Leopold II of Belgium, whose forces seized Congo in the late 19th century and ran an exploitative regime that led to the deaths of millions, was removed from a public square in Antwerp on Tuesday.
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Activists who tore down the Bristol monument on Sunday - who were condemned by Boris Johnson - were referenced at Mr Floyd's funeral.

Civil rights activist Rev Al Sharpton, who preached at the service, said: "I've seen grandchildren of slave masters tearing down a slave master statue over in England and put it in the river."

Rev Sharpton said Mr Floyd's death, after a police officer held his...