The Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) movement has spread to the US.
An activist who removed a Confederate flag in the US, where a statue of Christopher Columbus was also defaced, has pledged allegiance to RMF.
UCT student Chumani Maxwele, who flung human excrement on to the Rhodes statue there, spurring the formation of RMF, said the activists’ actions abroad had inspired RMF.
“Personally and collectively as a movement, we are honoured by the developments abroad.
“These happenings confirm that we were never without philosophy and we were not misdirected, as many have said,” Chumani said.
“We have been touched and inspired to continue being courageous in the face of injustice.
“Their actions show that we have every right to question why these symbols exist.”
Bree Newsome, 30, climbed up a flag pole at South Carolina’s state house and removed a Confederate flag this week.
After her arrest and subsequent release, Newsome said one of the reasons she removed the flag was because she stood in solidarity with South African students who toppled the statue of Cecil John Rhodes at UCT.
After Newsome pulled down the flag on Saturday, the Columbus statue in Boston was daubed in red paint and marked with the slogan, “Black Lives Matter” on Tuesday.
Other Confederate monuments in southern parts of the US have also been targeted following fatal shootings of blacks by police officers and at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston on June 18. Statues of Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis, at the University of Texas, and another Confederate monument in Charleston, South Carolina, were defaced.
Open Stellenbosch, a movement at Stellenbosch University similar to RMF, said: “We stand in solidarity with Bree Newsome and the Black Lives Matter campaign.
“These struggles against legacies of colonialism have real, lived consequences.
“However… robust measures need to be put in place to ensure that real transformation takes place at our universities.”
UCT spokesperson Kylie Hatton said: “The university welcomes the dialogue happening both in South Africa and internationally about what symbols are appropriate for public display.”
Cape Times