Durham, N.C. Workers World Party

Template:TOCnestleft Durham, N.C. Workers World Party is affiliated with the Workers World Party.

Confederate statue tear down

Workers World Party Durham Branch, August 15, 2017

Statement on arrest of our comrades: on the eve of the arrest of Takiyah Thompson.

Qasima Wideman, a member of Workers World Party who was present at the Durham action on August 14:

"Confederate statues aren't just hunks of metal and concrete. They represent the roots and history of a system of white supremacy that disenfranchises, murders, displaces and harms Black and Brown people up through today. If the people decide they want to remove such a statue, that should be their right. Love does not trump hate. It hasn't taken down any Confederate statues or stopped any of the racist and fascist violence that people in Charlottesville, Charlotte, Ferguson, Baltimore and every where face every day. Only organized people's power will take down white supremacy. Through racist drug laws and the prison industrial complex, cops do the paid work of white supremacy. The Trump regime has emboldened these racists."

Takiyah Thompson, member of Workers World Party and student at N.C. Central University, who climbed to the top of the statue to tie a rope around it's neck before the crowd tore it down:

"The people decided to take matters into our own hands and remove the statue. We are tired of waiting on politicians who could have voted to remove the white supremacist statues years ago, but they failed to act. So we acted."

We demand: 1. The Durham County Commissioners, the Durham Sheriff's office and District Attorney's office drop the charges and stop investigating anti-racist activists involved with August 14 action. 2. That the City of Charlottesville drop charges against anti-racist protesters from August 12. 3. Governor Roy Cooper expedite the removal of all Confederate statues across the state. 4. The Durham County Commissioners and City Council attend public forums to allow the community to speak-out about their concerns for public displays of the Confederacy. 5. Abolish the police, prisons, ICE and the Pentagon -- tear down all institutions of White Supremacy! Black Lives Matter!

Arrested at or soon after Thompson’s court appearance on Aug. 15 were Dante Strobino, Ngoc Loan Tran, and Peter Gilbert, also WWP members. By Friday, Aug. 18, Aaron Caldwell, Raul Jimenez, Elena Everett and Taylor Jun Cook had been arrested.

Aftermath

Activists and community and family members gathered here the morning of Dec. 5 2017 to show their support and solidarity for 11 anti-racist activists who were returning to court to face charges related to their militant challenges to white supremacy. The Dec. 5 hearing was the first time all 11, who have had several court hearings since August, appeared in court together.

Inside the court, the cases of nine of the activists, who were charged in relation to the Aug. 14 removal of a Confederate statue in front of the old Durham courthouse, were continued by a judge to Jan. 11. The cases of the other two, who face charges related to an Aug. 18 community mobilization against an announced KKK march, were continued to Feb. 8. After the hearing, a rally and press conference were held.

The defendants are inviting community members across Durham to sign up to be witnesses for the defense for the Jan. 11 trial. Elena Everett, a Workers World Party member who faces charges relating to the statue removal, said: “We invite all those who believe that Durham is a better place without the monument, that the monument had no value to our community, and was in fact a liability, to sign up to be a witness. We will set up an online form and email to collect your testimony.”

Speaking from the mic, community activist Rafiq Zaidi asserted that the Confederate monument should be replaced with a monument in tribute of “those who were bold enough to put a rope around the neck of that Confederate statue. We have suffered under this injustice and racism for far too long.”

In a press release prior to the hearing, Workers World Party member Loan Tran stated: “The events of Aug. 14 and 18 were an act of community service and defense. We have to remember what happened just a few days before in Charlottesville, Va., when white supremacists and neo-Confederates terrorized, occupied and brutalized its residents. Heather Heyer was murdered, and many other anti-racist activists were injured.” Tran asserted that “the eleven facing charges have done their service to the community. We call on D.A. [Roger] Echols to immediately drop the charges.”

“Removing symbols of white supremacy from our community is not a crime,” said WWP member Jess Jude, one of those facing charges regarding the statue removal. “What happened on Aug. 14 was a service to the Durham community and an example of taking righteous action, a small step to correct centuries of injustice.”

Rally against rape

A march and rally took place Durham, North Carolina April 28 2007 against sexual violence and assault. The protest was called Creating a World Without Sexual Violence—National Day of Truthtelling (DOT).

The organizing DOT coalition was made up of Black Workers for Justice, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Independent Voices, Men Against Rape Culture, North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Raleigh Fight Imperialism—Stand Together, Spirit House, Southerners On New Ground (SONG) and UBUNTU.

Alexis Gumbs, a Black graduate student at Duke, read a moving open letter to the crowd in front of the Buchanan house.

The main rally was held on the steps of the Durham County Courthouse. Speakers there included Serena Sebring, UBUNTU; Monika Johnson Hostler, NCCASA; Paulina Hernandez, SONG; Tyneisha Bowens and Laura Bickford, Raleigh FIST; Shafeah M'Balia, Women’s Commission of BWFJ, and Phoenix Brangman, Dasan Ahanu and Bryan Proffitt of Men Against Rape Culture. A number of the speakers linked the issue of sexual violence to the struggle for immigrant rights and against racism, homophobia, capitalism, militarism and imperialism.

"Hard Times Are Fighting Times"

"Hard Times Are Fighting Times: Building a Southern Movement for Revolution and Socialism" was sponsored by the Durham, North Carolina branch of the branch of the Workers World Party.

Speakers

Speakers included Gao Chia-Ren, Jasiri X, Jeralynn Blueford, Sharon Black, Saladin Muhammad, Lamont Lilly, Imani Henry, Monica Moorehead, Ben Carroll, Eva Panjwani, Larry Holmes, Dianne Mathiowetz.

"Electric energy and revolutionary fervor"

The auditorium of the Durham North Carolina, Public Library could hardly contain the electric energy and revolutionary fervor of those who gathered for the “Hard Times Are Fighting Times: Building a Southern Movement for Revolution and Socialism” conference here on March 29 2014. The conference was a testament to the momentous changes taking place in the working-class movement in the U.S. and drew more than 100 activists from across the South and other parts of the country, representing many struggles.

Participants came from throughout North Carolina, as well as Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, West Virginia, Maryland, and elsewhere. Several revolutionary student organizations sent delegations to the conference, including the Socialist Student Union in Rock Hill, S.C.; the Revolutionary Students Union in Blacksburg, Va.; and the Appalachian State University Marxist Student Union in Boone, N.C. At least four other socialist organizations attended. There was strong participation from youth and people of color, including African American, Latino/a, Arab and Asian. Several curious passersby at the library were drawn in and stayed throughout the day.

Taurean Brown, a local Durham activist, told Workers World, “I think the conference was a powerful moment where people from all walks of life came together. People gained powerful knowledge from a socialist perspective to address the constant ills of white supremacist, imperialist, capitalist patriarchy.”

It was a tremendous gathering of both regional and national significance that helped to rally a number of forces around a revolutionary, struggle-oriented, pro-socialist pole of resistance and unity in this period of capitalism at a dead end.

The banner of the conference resonated deeply with many — that as the conditions of the working class, especially the most oppressed, continue to decline as the global capitalist crisis deepens — the only choice the masses have is to unite and fight back. The seriousness of the crisis and the revolutionary optimism of the perspective put forward by the conference inspired some of the most class-conscious forces to participate.

The conference sought to grapple not only with the important developments of the day — including the Moral Monday movement, the low-wage workers’ struggle, fightbacks against police brutality, and more – from the perspective of revolutionary Marxism, but also with the unique conditions of the U.S. South and the tasks to deepen a revolutionary, anti-racist, socialist perspective within the broader movement.

A preconference discussion document prepared by the Durham branch of the WWP , the conference sponsor, outlined the motivation for the conference and the need to develop both a perspective and a strategy that addresses the U.S. South. The opening of the document reads, “The region has a dual character — it is a part of the U.S., the greatest imperialist power in the world, but has a different pattern of development rooted in slavery, and as such it is part of the Global South — characterized by colonialism, exploitation by imperialist powers, and national oppression.” This, the document explains, is what makes the South so vital to a revolutionary strategy in the U.S., but what has also frustrated past organizing efforts. (Read the entire document at workers.org.)

The document also extensively addresses the significant role that the U.S. South plays in the global economy, the history of slavery and national oppression that characterizes the region, and the changing character of the working class. Strategies like the assemblies movement that effectively address these conditions and merge the anti-racist and labor struggles are among the strategic paths to victory, particularly in this period.

Building revolutionary solidarity

The day began with a tribute to Chokwe Lumumba, the late mayor of Jackson, Miss., and a message of solidarity to Carlos Riley Jr., a Black youth from Durham who, days prior to the conference, had been sentenced to 10 years in prison after being framed for shooting a police officer.

The opening panel laid out an overall perspective that helped to ground discussions throughout the day. An analysis of the capitalist crisis and the political movement in North Carolina and the South was woven into many of the opening talks. Saladin Muhammad, co-coordinator of the Southern Workers Assembly and the Black Left Unity Network, spoke on the centrality of the Black working class and an understanding of the national question, particularly in organizing the South. Other talks also raised the contributions of Vladimir Lenin on the right to self-determination and imperialism, particularly with regard to understanding the current imperialist-led crises in Ukraine and Venezuela.

Conference attendees then participated in small discussion groups led by plenary speakers, allowing everyone to delve deeper into the issues raised in the opening panel. There were also two discussion groups that dealt with raising the history of struggles led by oppressed people in the South and with the role that communists, including Workers World Party, have played in past and present struggles in the region.

Durham WWP member, Lamont Lilly, who co-facilitated a discussion on what it means to be a revolutionary today, explained that “[To be a revolutionary means to] build movements. Revolutionaries connect struggles. Revolutionaries speak truth to power and hold that power accountable to the people. Revolutionaries listen to the people and learn from the people. Revolutionaries make sacrifices for justice. Revolutionaries love and give love.”

Four workshops after lunch addressed some of the major struggles of the day, including police brutality and state repression, new methods of organizing in this period of capitalism at a dead end, imperialist war and women’s and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer liberation, and the role of revolutionary cultural organizing in the movement.

Jasiri X, a revolutionary hip-hop artist from Pittsburgh, Pa., co-facilitated the workshop on revolutionary culture and later, before the entire conference, gave a moving presentation on his recent trip to occupied Palestine. Later that evening, he headlined “Beats & Resistance,” a hip-hop show that also featured local artists BeatNam Vets and Laila Nur.

The closing panel raised lessons of Marxist and struggle-oriented politics in practice, including what it means to join a revolutionary party. Jeralynn Blueford, the mother of 18-year-old Alan Blueford who was fatally shot by Oakland, Calif., police in 2012, gave a powerful address about the struggles around her son’s case. At the end of her talk, the room echoed and vibrated as she led a chant of “All power to all the people!”

Fern Figueroa, of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, shared lessons of building shop-floor struggles as a rank-and-file Teamster and of organizing against police murders in Florida via video, as he was unable to attend at the last minute.

Larry Holmes, first secretary of Workers World Party, closed the conference by raising the importance of the low-wage workers’ struggle and the need to deepen political solidarity with this development that is sweeping the U.S. and the world.

Brandi Geurkink, who attended the conference with a delegation from the Socialist Students Union, told WW, “I really enjoyed the conference, particularly how everyone I came into contact with had a keen understanding of intersectionality and worked really hard to create a space where everyone felt safe, included and valued for their unique contribution and perspective.”

Donors and monthly sustainers Durham Solidarity Center

Supporters of Durham Solidarity Center.

People’s Durham, Vision 2.0 Tech, Workers World Party, Youth Organizing Institute.

Zaina Alsous, Felicia Arriaga, Ben Carroll, Ben Crawford, Jason Cross, Alissa Ellis, Elena Everett, Peter Gilbert, Susie Goodman, Luke Hirst, Jillian Johnson, Andy Koch, Roxane Kolar, Jonathan Kotch, Jodi Lasseter, Connie Leeper, Fernando Martinez, Eva Panjwani, Josh Reynolds, Cathey Stanley, Dante Strobino, E. Swan, Tamara Tal, Rachel Valentine.

References

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