Banksy to sell T-shirts in aid of protesters facing trial over removal of slave trader statue
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Written by Jeevan Ravindran, CNN
The protesters tied rope around the bronze statue of Colston and pulled it down from its plinth. They then took it to Bristol Harbour and threw it into the River Avon, which runs through the city.
Four people were charged by police over the removal and are due to go to trial next week. Banksy said his souvenir T-shirts would "mark the occasion" and would be available from outlets in Bristol from Saturday for £25 ($33).
Banksy also shared a photo of the T-shirts, emblazoned with the stenciled word "Bristol" above an image of the empty plinth where the statue formerly stood, with the rope hanging down from it, and a protester's placard lying next to it.
Colston was a slave trader and merchant who helped transport tens of thousands of people from Africa as slaves across the Atlantic and sold them for labor, primarily for work in sugar plantations in the Caribbean and Virginia
His statue, installed in 1895, is just one example of the way he was honored in his home city of Bristol, with roads, schools and buildings also being named after him -- although many have since been renamed.
After the murder of George Floyd and the global rise of the Black Lives Matter movement last year, Banksy -- who has been confirmed in interviews to be a White man -- shared an anti-racist statement online.