Columbus statue to be removed from PoS, square to be renamed
THE Port of Spain City Council has decided to remove the bronze statue of Christopher Columbus from the nation's capital and rename Columbus Square.
The council plans to build a new monument to honour the victims of the subsequent genocide that the navigator's so-called "discovery" brought.
Speaking during the Kambule Street procession on August 1 to celebrate the 187th anniversary of the emancipation of African slaves, Port of Spain Mayor Chinua Alleyne announced the move, among several other recent decisions, to not only celebrate local heroes but to ensure that future generations are educated and inspired.
Alleyne said that in 1880, the bronze statue was gifted to the then Borough Council by a wealthy cocoa planter and merchant from Martinique, Hypolite Borde. He said the merchant paid for the refurbishment of an old, neglected cemetery, which is now known as Columbus Square. It was opened in 1881 by Governor Sir William Young as a memorial and tribute to the navigator. However, he said this must go for healing to occur.
"More than 140 years later, restoration and repair require that as we ensure that the yet-to-be-born revere our ancestors like Kwame Ture, we also ensure that they learn our colonial history in its most appropriate historical context. For that reason, the Council of the City of Port of Spain has taken the decision to remove the statue of Christopher Columbus from Independence Square and to make it available to the National Museum and Art Gallery for display."
He said a committee will be set up to determine a new name for the square in honour of all of the victims of the genocide of indigenous peoples, the trans-Atlantic slave trade and colonialism. He said an art collective will also be created to come up with a new monument for the location.
"Ladies and gentlemen, a name is a powerful thing."
Additionally, he said the council also decided to rename part of Oxford Street, Port of Spain, as Kwame Ture Way to honour the pan-African revolutionary's contribution to the fight against institutional racism.
Alleyne said the National Trust already recognised Ture's birth home on Oxford Street as a heritage site, but the renaming was necessary to celebrate his contributions. Ture was born Stokely Carmichael on June 29, 1941.
"He was a monumental figure in the American civil rights and black power movements and a titan of the global pan-African movement. A leader on the road to restoration and repair alongside other ancestors like Martin Luther King Jr, Angela Davis, Malcolm X and Kwame Nkrumah, the first prime minister and president of Ghana. Kwame Ture once famously said that the job of the conscious is to make the unconscious conscious."
The portion of Oxford Street from Argyle Street to Charlotte Street will be renamed Kwame Ture Way.
"It is our hope that those yet to be born will grow up inspired by the work of this global pan-African hero from behind the bridge in Port of Spain."
https://newsday.co.tt/2025/08/01/columb ... e-renamed/
