Taylor Jun Cook
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Template:TOCnestleft Taylor Jun Cook is a North Carolina activist.
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."[1]
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.[2]