In yet another brazen attempt to erase history, the London Museum Docklands has half-covered a portrait of 18th-century merchant Beeston Long with Madras cloth, all in the name of “reclaim[ing] Caribbean history.” This symbolic shrouding targets Long’s investments in Jamaican plantations, turning a piece of British maritime legacy into a virtue-signaling prop.
Critics see this as part of the left’s relentless campaign to erase uncomfortable truths about the past, prioritizing feelings over history and sidelining the achievements of figures who built modern Britain. With new panels lecturing visitors that such artworks can “obscure” or “sanitise” links to slavery and “evoke emotional responses,” the museum is pushing a narrative that gives “voice to those whose cultures have been impacted by colonialism.”
The portrait of Beeston Long, a former Bank of England governor who oversaw Docklands expansion, now hangs partially obscured by cloth exported to the Caribbean during colonial times. Museum officials claim this intervention helps “reclaim the histories of colonised Caribbean nations” and celebrates the Windrush Generation’s influence.
Museum covers up portrait of former Bank of England governor who owned slaves to 'reclaim Caribbean history'https://t.co/w1KJ9mmWVd
They assert the Caribbean community was “essential” to the area and “invited to migrate to Britain to help rebuild the ‘mother country’” between 1948 and 1971, noting arrivals “created the Tower Hamlets we know today.”
Displays further declare: “Many of the objects in this gallery were created for and through the oppression of enslaved people. European colonialists exploited African and Asian peoples and lands relentlessly.”
To top it off, an installation called Holding Emotions offers visitors ways to “reclaim wellbeing” and “ground yourself,” complete with doodling tips and comfy seats for those triggered by history.
This isn’t an isolated incident. Recall the removal of Robert Milligan’s statue outside the same museum in 2020 amid Black Lives Matter unrest, which remains in storage. National Museum Cardiff yanked a painting of colonial governor Thomas Picton in 2021 to “decolonise” its collection.
As we’ve covered before, this woke purge has targeted icons across the West. In Wales, the government flagged statues of “old white men” like Admiral Horatio Nelson – an “aggressor who conquered peoples” – General Arthur Wellesley, Charles, 2nd Earl Grey (an abolitionist), and Winston Churchill for removal, claiming they fuel perceptions of white male dominance and “can be offensive to people today.”
Across the pond, Theodore Roosevelt’s equestrian statue at New York’s American Museum of Natural History was covered and removed in 2021, labeled a symbol of “racial hierarchy” despite honoring him as a naturalist.It was shipped to North Dakota on “indefinite loan.”
Source: modernity
