The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
City’s ‘shameful’ statue target on racism ‘hit-list’
DUNDEE: Tullideph streets also have links to slavery
Statues and street names in Dundee have been targeted by anti-racism campaigners.
The monument to radical politician and slave-owner George Kinloch in Albert Square, pictured right, is on a national “Topple the Racists” hit list for his links to the slave trade.
Dundee councillors have also highlighted three city streets named after Dr Walter Tullideph, who owned slaves and ran plantations on the Caribbean island of Antigua in the 18th Century.
Dundee City Council leader John Alexander yesterday said he is “surprised and horrified” by the city’s links to slavery.
There will now be a discussion on how the historical connections are best remembered after a wave of Black Lives Matter protests saw similar monuments defaced or destroyed in demonstrations across the UK.
Mr Alexander said: “It’s important for all of us to educate ourselves in light of recent events.
“It shouldn’t, of course, take recent events for us to understand or learn the truth about that negative and shameful past.”
Tayside’s historic links to the slave trade are coming under fresh scrutiny as the Black Lives Matter protests continue to reverberate around the country.
A statue of radical politician and slave owner George Kinloch in Dundee’s Albert Square, and the Melville Monument to Henry Dundas on Dunmore Hill overlooking Comrie, in Perthshire, have been placed on an anti-racist protesters’ online hit list.
Dundee councillors have also highlighted concerns about three city streets named after Dr Walter Tullideph, who owned slaves and ran plantations on the Caribbean island of Antigua in the 18th Century.
Dundee City Council leader John Alexander said he was “surprised and horrified” to learn of the city’s links with the trade and has ordered a review of the dedication on the Kinloch statue.
“It’s important that people’s voices are heard in the current discussion and I know that there are a huge variety of opinions on what actions should and shouldn’t be taken,” he added.
“It’s also important for all of us to educate ourselves in light of recent events.”
Councillors in the city have been urged to stop using “slave traders’ language” in council chambers, including the phrase “nitty gritty”, which is thought by some to have racist origins.
Labour councillor Georgia Cruickshank said: “Being a woman of colour, I know only too well what racism feels like and to be discriminated against because of the colour of your skin.
“We must educate our children about black history. We must not glorify the slave traders who built their empires off the back of black people.
“We must embrace diversity, teach tolerance and understanding of black and ethnic minority lives, and stop using slave traders’ language such as ‘nitty gritty’ in our council chambers.”
In Dundee, vandals daubed a mural of George Floyd, whose death at the hands of US police sparked the protest movement, with a white supremacy symbol before campaigners repainted it with an anti-fascist message.
The Kinloch and Dundas monuments have been listed on the Topple The Racists campaign website – “a crowdsourced map of UK statues and monuments that celebrate slavery and racism”.
Dundee was not a slave trading port but historical figures linked with the city either built or developed their wealth through industries reliant upon the ownership and abuse of slaves.
Both George Kinloch and Dr Walter Tullideph are listed as slave owners on university UCL’S Legacies of British Slave-ownership database.
Henry Dundas’ work to delay the abolition of slavery cost thousands of lives, leading to calls for statues to the former home secretary across Scotland to be taken down and streets renamed.
George Kinloch, who later became a Dundee MP and was a noted parliamentary reformer, has enjoyed a largely positive legacy.
Matthew Jarron, secretary of the Abertay Historical Society, said Kinloch is a “particularly complex figure”.
“His statue was erected after decades of campaigning by the working classes in Dundee to celebrate his important role in securing workers’ rights and fighting to allow working men to have the vote.
“Yet it is also true that he inherited his father’s estate in Jamaica which he sold in 1804, so he may therefore have funded part of his political activism and his years in exile through profits earned from this.
“Further research is definitely required to find out what the extent of his involvement was with this estate and how the statue should therefore be reinterpreted.”
Dundee Labour councillor Richard Mccready called for a wider discussion on how slave ownership should be best recognised and remembered in the city.
He said: “The various streets in my ward called are named after Dr Walter Tullideph. There should be, at the very least, some way of commemorating the slaves who created the wealth that allowed Dr Tullideph to buy estates in Scotland, which led to streets being named after him.
“We should have a debate and listen to the voice of black people in the city,” he added.
Council equalities spokeswoman and SNP councillor Lynne Short said she supported calls for greater dialogue on the issue.
She said she had not been aware of the links between the Tullideph name and slave ownership, or those involving political reformer George Kinloch.
“It brings home, historically, how much black lives didn’t matter. He was a radical supporter of the rights of the people of the city but he didn’t make the comparison between the two.
“Black lives matter. End of story.”