Statue of UK slave merchant replaced with Black Lives Matter protester

The statue of a slave trader that was torn down and thrown into a river last month in Bristol, England, was replaced overnight by a sculpture of a Black Lives Matter protester with a fist raised to the sky.

The new statue of Jen Reid, who helped pull down the statue of 17th-century slave merchant Edward Colston in June and was photographed in the same pose, was secretly installed by the team of artist Marc Quinn at dawn on Wednesday.

A cardboard sign saying “Black lives still matter” was placed beneath the work, which the artist titled “A surge of power (Jen Reid) 2020.”

Quinn and Reid, who collaborated on the work, have said the installation was intended to be temporary.