I understand the point of not idolising historic figures, but the problem is you can't wash away all of human history based on preferences or political correctness.
I agree fully in equality, that is with the gender pay gap, no preference due to ethnicity, theology, gender, nationality, all should be equal.
However every historical figure at one point would have been deemed 'a racist' because it was purely how things were the time.
It was mostly to do with colonialism.
Pre industrial revolution (where machines) could do labour, sadly there was slavery it is a dark period in history, and people like Churchill also helped the country in the war so on the national level he is a hero, but on a human level, based on 21st century values he isn't.
One day we may deem those who pay people minimum wages 'exploitative' such as Jeff Bezos, and any statues he has may also be torn down, our view on history changes with time, but you can't take that away.
The larger issue currently is of course BLM and also police brutality which clearly needs to stop, but ripping down statues purely because of the movement I'm not entirely sure of.
The purpose of the statues are to do with things like what they contributed, such as Churchill with WW2, the statue isn't a monument to his racist views.