Cecil Rhodes House, London, is Renamed after Tenants' Vote
March 21, 21
(IDEX Online) - Tenants at a London apartment block have voted to drop the name Cecil Rhodes House.
The building that is their home was named after the De Beers founder in 1957, but the left-wing Labour municipality (Camden Council) that owns it polled residents last month over a change of name.
Those living in the 82 apartments voted against renaming it after the black boxer Bill Richmond or Indian spy Noor Inayat Khan and opted instead for the politically neutral Park View House.
Back in the 1980s there were suggestions that the block, overlooking the capital's St Pancras station, should be called Zimbabwe House or Mugabe House to mark the end of white-minority rule in what was then Rhodesia.
Camden Council embarked on a renaming process after the prominence of the Black Lives Matter campaign last year.
It provided residents with a carefully-worded account of Rhodes' legacy, saying: "He was prime minister of the Cape Colony, which is now South Africa, where he brought in new laws that allowed land to be forcibly taken from Black Africans and reduced the voting rights of non-white people.
"These laws eventually led to apartheid in South Africa, which was a political system of racism, discrimination and segregation that didn't end until 1991. The effects of apartheid can still be felt today."
The Oxford college that Rhodes (pictured) attended voted last year to remove his statue after a lengthy campaign.