THIS afternoon, anti-racism activists met in the centre of Oxford to mark the one-year anniversary since George Floyd was murdered.
Rhodes Must Fall and Oxford Stand Up to Racism were just two of the groups who attended the rally.
Activists met at Bonn Square to demand action over racism - a number of protestors gave testimonies about racism they had experienced within the UK and read out the names of those believed to be victims of police brutality.
The group of protestors then marched from Bonn Square, down Queen Street, to the High Street - where the controversial statue of Cecil Rhodes is placed on top of Oriel College.
On Friday, Oriel College, which owns the statue of Cecil Rhodes, said it will not remove the statue yet, despite an independent recommendation that says it should fall.
Calls to remove the memorial of Rhodes, who was a nineteenth-century imperialist and considered a white-supremacist because of his comments on the superiority of the ‘Anglo-Saxon Race’, were reignited last June after the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was torn down in Bristol.
Today, police were waiting outside the college as protestors arrived.
The anti-racism activists then chanted 'Rhodes Must Fall' and 'Black Lives Matter' outside the college - demanding for the statue to be removed.
Laurie Duthie, 33, is an inclusion advisor, came to the protest today to support the important issues the rally addressed.
Her intern, Micah Bhatti, echoed the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Chando Mapoma, 28, who studies at St Anthony's College, Oxford, said 'Cecil Rhodes is a disgraceful figure' that the university needs to take action to remove.
A statement from Oxford Stand Up to Racism said: "The decision by Oriel college to keep the statue of white supremacist Cecil Rhodes in place on the college building overlooking the High Street is yet another example of the attempt to deny the demands of the Black Lives Matter movement, alongside the CRED report denying institutional racism, and new police powers that will increase discrimination against Black and minority communities, and limit anti-racist and other protests.
"Oxford Rhodes Must Fall Campaign has rightly condemned Oriel colleges decision and is right to insist that no inclusion or diversity programmes in the college can offset the harm done by upholding a figure who advocated and profited from the enslavement of Africans."
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