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Cecil Rhodes: Oxford University college students want statue to go

Reuters The statue of Cecil RhodesReuters
Protestors have been calling for the statue of the British Imperialist Cecil Rhodes to be removed for several years

Students at an Oxford University college have joined calls to remove a statue of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes.

Protesters say it is a symbol of racism and imperialism and Oriel College undergraduates believe it gives Rhodes "inappropriate honour and prestige".

It comes after anti-racism demonstrators in Bristol tore down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston.

The college's governing body will discuss the statue's fate later.

It sits above a doorway on the front of the college's Rhodes Building, which faces Oxford's High Street.

Reuters statue of British imperialist Cecil RhodesReuters
The statue of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes sits over the doorway on the front of the college’s Rhodes Building

Kate Whittington, president of Oriel College's junior common room, said the statue "looms over the college as a symbol of Oriel's continuing refusal to listen to the voices of its undergraduates and, most importantly, of its black students".

Students want the college to put the statue in a museum and explain "their past decisions to keep the statue in place".

Protesters outside Oriel College
Two protests have been held in Oxford over the past two weeks

The college decided to keep the statue following protests in 2016 and denied claims it kept it because of donors threatening to withdraw funding.

Black Lives Matter campaigners marched through Oxford on Tuesday night and thousands protested on 9 June.

Rhodes Must Fall campaigners have said Oxford University has "failed to address its institutional racism" and urged it to improve its representation of black students and "decolonise" its curriculum.

Oxford University's vice chancellor, Professor Louise Richardson, has previously said she believed "hiding our history is not the route to enlightenment".

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Who was Cecil Rhodes?

Getty Images Cecil RhodesGetty Images
  • An imperialist, businessman and politician who played a dominant role in southern Africa in the late 19th Century, driving the annexation of vast swathes of land
  • Born the son of a vicar in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, in 1853, he first went to Africa at the age of 17
  • He grew cotton with his brother in Natal but moved into diamond mining, founding De Beers
  • Rhodes's bequest continues to finance scholarships bearing his name, allowing overseas students to attend Oxford University
  • Controversial even in his own time, Rhodes backed the disastrous Jameson Raid of 1895, in which a small British force tried to overthrow the gold-rich Transvaal Republic, helping prompt the Second Boer War, in which tens of thousands died
  • The Rhodes Must Fall campaign began in South Africa - where a Rhodes statue was removed - and was adopted in Oxford by campaigners who believe his views were incompatible with an "inclusive culture"