Slave-owner’s concert hall considers change of name
mainWe hear that Colston Hall in Bristol – named after a 17th century English MP and trafficker in human misery – is looking for a sponsor who might relieve it of past associations.
By neat coincidence, the hall will host a performance next season by the Kinshasa Symphony Orchestra, Africa’s bravest.
Thomas Jefferson owned over 650 slaves during his life. Among our countries founders, he was viewed as the expert for social justice and human rights.
Jefferson was not regarded that way in his own time. In truth he was more like an elite intellectual who liked to theorize a radical revolutionary ideal…and attitude. (And the violence of the French Revolution did not dissuade him.) But he mostly protected the privileged position of his class.