The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Protester arrested in toppling of statue
Student who says she was involved arrested in Durham.
DURHAM, N.C. — Sheriff ’s deputies in this predominantly liberal city on Tuesday began arresting protesters they said tore down a statue honoring proslavery secessionists, while the state’s Democratic governor pledged to repeal a state law that had prevented such monuments from being removed through legal means.
Protesters had gathered in Durham on Monday evening to support victims of the weekend’s deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., which had been called in opposition to the removal of a statue of the Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Before they were through, the Durham demonstrators ripped down the statue, which had stood since 1924, while law enforcement officers stood by.
But on Tuesday, a clearly
irate Sheriff Michael D. Andrews of Durham County, responding to apparent criticism that his officers had not done enough, announced that he would use “every legal option available to us” to find and arrest those who had torn down the statue.
Hours later, word that deputies were raiding the houses of people suspected of being involved in the demonstration reached activists holding
a news conference about the protest at North Carolina Central University, a historically black institution in Durham. One of the speakers, Takiya Thompson, a student at the university and a member of the Workers World Party who said she had climbed the statue on Monday and put on one of the straps used to pull it down, was arrested by two uniformed sheriff ’s deputies as she left the communications building.
“I chose to do that because I am tired of living in fear. I am tired of white supremacy keeping its foot on my neck and the neck of people who look like me,” Thompson, who is black, told reporters shortly before her arrest. “I was inspired by a history of black activists and history of black organizing.”
During the march in Durham, about 170 miles south of Charlottesville, protesters had gathered around the old county courthouse, currently used as a county administration building, where a statue erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and inscribed “In memory of the boys who wore the gray” had stood since 1924. Several dozen black and white protesters cheered as a small group threw yellow straps around the figure, pulled it off its granite pedestal and watched it crash to the ground, where some kicked it and others celebrated. Many chanted: “No Trump! No KKK! No fascist U.S.A.!”