Glasgow Museums gifted Celtic's Green Brigade Sheku Bayoh street sign

The Green Brigade, known for their provocative and political statements at Hoops games, last year undertook a guerilla campaign in light of global protests against racial injustice to “replace” the names of city streets which referenced slave owners or those linked to the slave trade. 

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Their Sheku Bayoh street sign references a black man who died in police custody in Kirkcaldy, Fife, in 2015.

They were thanked on Twitter by Miles Greenwood, who was appointed last year as Glasgow Life’s first dedicated curator looking at the history of colonialism and slavery. 

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He said: “My first acquisition is now online. Huge thanks to the Celtic Green Brigade for their donation.”

The sign was put up beneath the official Cochrane Street sign on the side of the City Chambers building. 

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His death is now the subject of an independent public inquiry led by Lord Bracadale, announced in November 2019. The inquiry was tasked by then Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf was to establish Mr Bayoh’s cause of death and to “establish the extent (if any) to which the events leading up to and following [his] death, in particular the actions of the officers involved, were affected by his actual or perceived race”.

A spokeswoman for Glasgow Life said: “Glasgow Museums is constantly seeking to add important objects to the collection with specific cultural significance that represents the history of the city. The re-naming of city streets in and around the Merchant City in Glasgow following the death of George Floyd in 2020 was widely reported at the time.

“The ‘Sheku Bayoh Street’ sign was mounted on Cochrane Street which is 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.

“The sign was donated to Glasgow Museums by The Green Brigade who made and installed it on Cochrane Street.”

The Green Brigade occupy the North Curve stand at Parkhead and regularly make the headlines for controversial protests, including railing against the inclusion of a Rememberance poppy on Celtic strips in 2010. 

More recently, they were criticised for calling for then Hoops manager Neil Lennon's resignation over poor results for the club in his last year in post. 

Celtic legend Chris Sutton called the group "a bunch of idiots".