Artist Banksy has designed a T-shirt to help the four Britons on trial next week for tearing down a statue of a slave trader in Bristol.
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It image of Edward Colston was taken down on June 7, 2020 and thrown into the water by protesters during a protest against racism in the English city. The protests sparked a discussion about controversial statues. Colston’s statue has not been returned, but has gone to a museum for an exhibition on ‘Black Lives Matter’.
Banksy’s T-shirt shows an empty pedestal with ropes and some debris from the toppled statue.
Banksy says all proceeds from the sale, £25 each, will go to the defendants. “So they can have a beer,” he wrote on Instagram. The four, aged between 21 and 36, are accused of vandalism. They plead innocent.
The shirts are for sale in five clothing stores in Bristol, Banksy’s home city. Long lines of thousands of interested buyers have already formed on Saturday, message The Independent.
Colston made his fortune in the 17th century as a slave trader. Before the statue ended up in the water, 10,000 people had already signed a petition asking the local government to remove the statue from public space.
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