A STATUE of colonialist Cecil Rhodes in Oxford “should be taken down,” the vice-chancellor of London’s Soas university said today.
Baroness Valerie Amos, who is due to become the first black head of an Oxford college later this year, countered arguments that the statue’s presence is needed “to have a conversation about history.”
She told BBC Breakfast today: “We shouldn't airbrush history but I don't think you need a statue of Cecil Rhodes to help you to have a conversation about that history. I would take it down.
PAUL BUHLE recommends an eminently useful book that examines the political opportunities for popular anti-fascist intervention
Still the only black man to win the US Open tennis title, a statue of the legendary champion, Arthur Ashe, is now the only one remaining on Monument Avenue in his Richmond, Virginia hometown, where confederate leaders of the Civil War were also once displayed, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
On the anniversary of the implementation of the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act, ROGER McKENZIE warns that the legacy of black enslavement still looms in the Caribbean and beyond
PAUL FOLEY welcomes a dramatic account of the men and women involved in the pivotal moment of the 5th Pan African Congress


