Details

Object type

street sign

Title

Sheku Bayoh

Artist/Maker

The Green Brigade maker

Materials

aluminium

Dimensions

overall: 200 mm x 500 mm x 3 mm

Description

Following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, protests against racism and police brutality erupted around the world. In Glasgow, alongside a series of demonstrations, activists in the Green Brigade - a group of anti-racist Celtic FC ultras - erected alternative street signs around the Merchant City dedicated to Black civil rights leaders and Black people killed at the hands of the police, as alternatives to streets currently named after merchants involved in the enslavement of Black people.

This “Sheku Bayoh Street” sign was one of those signs. Sheku Bayoh was a Black man who died while in police custody in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, in 2015. As of June 2021, there have been no charges brought against any of the police involved. Since November 2020, there has been an ongoing independent public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of Sheku Bayoh. Following the death of George Floyd, Sheku Bayoh’s sister, Kadi, asked everyone to, “remember his name and feel the same outrage over his death in police custody as you do over the killing of George Floyd in the United States.”

The “Sheku Bayoh Street” sign was mounted below the existing “Cochrane Street” sign. A street named after Andrew Cochrane who, as a tobacco merchant, derived his wealth from enslaved Black people who were forced to work on tobacco plantations in Virginia.

Credit Line/Donor

Gifted by the Green Brigade, March 2021

ID Number

PP.2021.4

Location

Kelvingrove Glasgow's Great Exhibitions