Comment - Historians of the Present - David Olusoga at the Colston 4 trial

[From the London Socialist Historians Group Newsletter 75 Spring 2022]

Historians of the Present

David Olusoga at the Colston 4 trial 

As long ago as the late 1950s the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm called for the then Communist Party Historians Group to become ‘historians of the present too’. This was a difficult point because while Marxist historians were free to opine and disagree on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the then Soviet Union determined the view on current history. 

That has now changed but historical input into present day issues has remained quite limited. One obvious example is the almost complete absence of historical views on how Governments have handled pandemics for example. On the other hand a very good example was the expert witness statement that the historian and broadcaster David Olusoga provided to the trial of the Colston 4 in December 2021.

The Colston 4 were found not guilty in January 2022. Martin Booth, a journalist, provided an account of the trial, partially reproduced below. 

Keith Flett

 Thursday Dec 16, 2021 

There were remarkable scenes in Bristol Crown Court on Thursday as one of the UK’s foremost historians was called as an expert defence witness in the trial of the four people accused of criminal damage to the statue of Edward Colston. David Olusoga took the jury back in time several centuries to the height of the transatlantic slave trade, described the horrifying conditions enslaved people were forced to endure and spoke of Colston’s part in the enterprise. In front of a packed public gallery, the professor spoke of Colston’s attempts at “reputation laundering” during his lifetime and later the “cult” that grew up around his philanthropy that led to the erection of his statue in 1895, 174 years after his death in 1721. Olusoga said that the money to pay for the statue was raised by “a tiny group of the city’s elite”, with the wording of the plaque on the now empty plinth “a form of camouflage”. “This is not an issue of amnesia. This is people aware of his background (as a slave trader) finding a way of not saying it.” Olusoga told the jury about the “interventions” that appeared on the statue in recent years when it was still standing, including a knitted ball and chain made of red wool, and a “guerrilla plaque”. He also spoke about an aborted official heritage plaque, whose words were “toned down” by the Society of Merchant Venturers and in particular by Francis Greenacre, one of its members. Olusoga said that the Merchant Venturers “seemed to be committed to trying to historically minimise” Colston’s involvement in the slave trade “by making it seem more normal”. “The statue was not just silent about Colston’s business interests. What offended in particular many people was that it was silent about his victims” including the many children who died on his slave ships. When a reworded plaque was suggested, Olusoga said that “it was felt by mayor Marvin Rees that the final wording was so watered down that it was not appropriate to be erected”. Liam Walker, representing Sage Willoughby, asked Olusoga if the statue of Colston being toppled from its plinth and rolled into the docks on June 7 2020 was an act of violence? “I think it is something I can comment upon,” replied Olusoga…