Statues are very much in the news at the moment. Should we venerate them, tear them down, board them up to protect them from threats (real or imagined), or shuffle them off to a dusty museum?
But sitting alongside such questions is another one, should we put up new statues and, if so, who should they represent?
If we occupied high office no doubt we would stand up and proclaim “what the people want is…” Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your point of view, we don’t occupy high office but we do know that what a growing number of ‘the people’ want, particularly if they live in Plymouth, is a statue commemorating Jack Leslie.
Born in London’s East End to a white mother and black father, Jack was a working class lad who made good as a footballer and had a long and successful career with Plymouth Argyle. So successful that he was called up to join the England squad for an international in Belfast in October 1925. Had he played he would have been the first footballer of colour to win an England cap, beating Viv Anderson to that honour by 53 years. Shamefully he was ‘un-called up’ by the selectors when they realised he was black. In Jack’s own words “They found out I was a darkie and I suppose that was like finding out I was foreign.”
A campaign is afoot to erect a statue in Jack’s honour in Plymouth. Plymouth City Council have already announced their intention to rename a square in the city after Jack (a square currently named after Sir John Hawkins, a ‘privateer’ whose activities included trading in enslaved people). But “what the people want…” is a statue of Jack Leslie.
The campaign has attracted the attention of the BBC who featured the story on their website https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53184615
You may also have heard about the campaign on the Today programme on Radio 4. If you missed it, you can listen to the item here:
If you would like more details of the campaign you can read about it here: https://jackleslie.co.uk/. Why not go further and add your voice to demands for a statue and, as today the campaign launches its crowdfunding appeal, a donation too?
Another thing you can do is pre-order a copy of Football’s Black Pioneers https://www.conkereditions.co.uk/2020/06/05/footballs-black-pioneers-pub-date-moved-forward-to-august-available-now-for-preorder where we talk about Jack and other football pioneers like him!