A Statement on the 'City of Civil Rights' Proposal
Bristol Legacy Foundation exists to do one thing: community repair, and specifically, repair for Afrikan Heritage Communities harmed by the Transatlantic Trafficking of Enslaved Africans (TTEA) and its ongoing legacy. Every position we take is measured against that purpose.
Our Chair has penned a letter on the campaign to brand Bristol as a 'City of Civil Rights,' and you can read the letter below.
Let's be clear, civil rights are legislative; they are rights granted, defined, and enforced by the state. We have them. What we do not have is reparations (do not equate this with simply compensation, though compensation is necessary). The 1833 Act that ended chattel slavery in the British Empire was, in substantial part, economic legislation: compensation was paid, but it went to enslavers, not the enslaved, and the economic harm to Afrikan Heritage Communities continued well beyond emancipation on paper. That history is instructive. A legal right, however hard-won, does not by itself undo the material and structural harm done to a community. Repair does.
This is why 'civil rights' is not the frame Bristol Legacy Foundation works within. Civil rights sit within the space of equality, diversity and inclusion, important work, and there is a place for it. It is not our space. Our work is about Afrikan Heritage Communities determining our own remedies, and institutions learning to support and follow that lead, not about extending or defending rights that already exist in law.
The campaign frames itself as recognising an identity Bristol already has, not creating a new one. Yet by its own description, it is civic and corporate institutions officially launching the bid and, in the campaign's own words, "inviting the city to help write the next chapter" afterwards. If this is, as claimed, the people's work, the people should be the ones leading its next chapter, not institutions branding a title on their behalf and inviting the community in once the launch has already happened. A title extended by the very institutions being asked to change is not the same as recognition earned from the communities harmed.
Titles are not exempt from this same test. Bristol's history of institutional racism is specific and well documented: in the bus company, in the hospitals, in the smelting works, and elsewhere, Black workers were excluded from basic employment until direct action, like the Bristol Bus Boycott, forced change. Those disparities have not disappeared.
The campaign's own material describes its predecessor programme as marking "civil rights progress and unfinished business." We would ask what that unfinished business actually resolves to. Murals, manifestos, toolkits and civic labs are activity, not outcomes. If the business is genuinely unfinished, the measure of finishing it is closing gaps in housing, education and employment, not a new title sitting alongside the same gaps.
We understand the 'City of Civil Rights' campaign is still in consultation as it develops its manifesto. We welcome that consultation is happening. Consultation without education is futile. We cannot meaningfully consult communities on a framing that starts from the wrong premise. Real engagement means institutions doing the work to understand what repair actually requires, before asking communities to weigh in on how it should be branded.
For these reasons, Bristol Legacy Foundation will not be actively supporting this campaign in its current form. It is a statement of what our work requires: substance, not symbolism. We are focused on getting institutions to a point where they can genuinely engage with Afrikan Heritage Communities, understand that we are determining our own remedies, and take up their role of supporting and following our lead. Should this campaign develop into something aligned with that work, we would welcome it.
More than that, though, we think it's worth stepping back from the fight over titles altogether. Afrikan Heritage Communities are, and should remain, at the centre of this work. If we keep our focus on impact, the recognition will follow. Titles are not the goal. Repair is.