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A council in Herts has passed a motion to change some of its town’s street names after their links to the slave trade.
At a Watford Borough Council meeting last night, (Tuesday, July 14), councillors debated whether roads that ‘are named after people who were involved in the slave trade, colonisation and oppression’ should be renamed.
The proposal was made by Leggatts Ward councillor Asif Khan, with the roads currently earmarked including Rhodes Way and Colonial Way.
Last night, Watford Borough Council debated whether to change the street names to reflect the town’s forward thinking and outward-looking residents.
Cllr Khan says that street names, including any subsequent buildings and monuments, should mirror Watford’s ‘rich, deep cultural history’ rather than including negative connotations.
He said: “Watford has been enriched by its ethnic minority citizens that have come from across the globe or born in UK. The likes of Luther Blissett, Anthony Joshua, John Barnes are just some, who have made contributions to our town, but there are many more.”
The motion was proposed as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement, which Cllr Khan says ‘rightly focused on the serious concerns of symbols of oppression and slavery’.
Several Labour councillors, including Cllr Khan, attended the peaceful demonstration across Watford that took place on June 6.
The motion was passed unanimously by Watford Council last night and a task force will be set up where councillors will work with Royal Mail to make the transition as successful as possible.
Cecil Rhodes was a British, Victorian Imperialist who was once described as the ‘architect of apartheid’ in South Africa.
Rhodes was a student at the University of Oxford and, when he died in 1902, a large sum of his wealth – which was mostly garnered by running diamond mines on slave labour – was donated to the university.
In June, Oriel College in Oxford announced it wanted to take down the university’s controversial statue of Rhodes.
That’s despite Oriel College deciding to keep the statue despite widespread calls from students demanding to remove it back in 2016.
Meanwhile, a statue of Rhodes on South Africa’s Table Mountin in Cape Town was decapitated earlier this week.
The motion reads: “The Council notes that Watford has a rich, diverse and positive history which must be celebrated. One way to celebrate this is to ensure that street names, buildings, statues and monuments reflect our town and that they do not contain any the negative history which this town abhors. The Black Lives Matter campaign has rightly focussed on the serious concerns of symbols of oppression and slavery.
“The council also notes that there are street names that are named after people who were involved in the slave trade, colonisation and oppression, which does not reflect the forward thinking, outward looking Britain and our town. The council notes that it is not tenable to continue to have these existing names for these streets.
“Watford has been enriched by its ethnic minority citizens that have come from right across the world or born in UK. The likes of Luther Blissett, Anthony Joshua, John Barnes are but a few, who have made contributions to our town, but there are many more.”
The list of roads to be renamed
(Image: Google Street View)
- Rhodes Way
- Clive Way
- Colonial Way
- Imperial Way
The Black Lives Matter movement grew traction across the world after the death of George Floyd in the United States in May.
Mr Floyd – an unarmed African-American man – died after a white police officer held him down by pressing a knee into his neck in Minneapolis on Monday, May 25.
The shocking footage showed Mr Floyd gasping for air and saying that he couldn’t breathe during the arrest by four officers.
Protests took place across Hertfordshire in the weeks that followed, including in Hitchin, Watford, Hoddesdon and Hertford.
