Campaign group renames Bristol roads to highlight black history
Curiosity UnLtd say they want to start a "grown-up conversation" about racial inequality
Last updated 6th Apr 2023
A campaign group and think tank has been crossing out street signs in Bristol to raise awareness of the city’s Black history.
Colston Avenue and Jamaica Street are among some of the streets with names connected to slavery which have been crossed out and replaced as part of Curiosity UnLtd’s Signs of Change campaign.
They’ve been unofficially renamed things like Paul Stephenson Street, after the activist who led the Bristol Bus Boycott 60 years ago this month.
That was when the black community boycotted the city’s bus services because they wouldn’t employ black drivers.
It took inspiration from the Montgomery Bus Boycotts in America’s Civil Rights Movement.
It also ended on the day Martin Luther King Jr gave his I Have a Dream speech. Five years later, on April 4th he was assassinated.
Julz is Disruptor in Chief at Curiosity UnLtd, he said: “What other city could possibly say that when Rosa Parks sat down, Bristol stood up, and was inspired by the civil rights movement?
"No other city in the world could possibly say that, and I think that's a great story that this city can grab can hold of, can own, can celebrate, can amplify, can embed into its DNA, but that's not currently the case.”
Bristol has been grappling with its colonial history for more than a century, but it hit the headlines in June 2020, when Black Lives Matter protesters toppled the statue of Edward Colston (a slave owner from the city) and threw it into the harbour.
Curiosity UnLtd say they don’t necessarily want the names of streets like Colston Avenue to change, but there needs to be more honesty about Bristol’s connections to the slave trade, whilst also making the Black history and heroes of the city more visible.
Julz says that by seeing themselves and their community represented in Bristol’s streets and buildings, Black people would feel more in touch with their Bristolian identity.
“You need to see yourself in the statues, and the street names, in the blue plaques, and the buildings you need to see that," he said.
"Otherwise you don't feel like you belong.
"I'm born and bred in Bristol, I'm a proud Bristolian, I'm so proud of Bristol.
"I grew up in Knowle West, but I describe myself as a Knowle West-Indian, and so I am proud of where I come from as a Bristolian and also as a person of colour with West Indian connections, but I'm not always so confident that I feel part of it.
“I just don't see myself reflected in the iconography of the city”.
Signs of Change was launched on April Fools Day but the organisers say it’s not all fun and games.
“What I really would like to see come out of it is a grown-up conversation about sense of place, sense of belonging, representation, reflection," he said.
"Where are we genuinely as a city, are we where we want to be in the future?”