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Aug 19, 17

IGD Durham: Community Quickly Mobilizes to Defeat Klan

Between five hundred and a thousand people answered a last minute call to respond to a planned KKK march to the old Durham courthouse, where five days earlier a large crowd of anti-fascists tore down a confederate monument in solidarity with Charlottesville. Led by banners in front, the crowd was loud, diverse, and feisty as it initially snaked its way through downtown, around a police line, past the jail, and back around to the courthouse.

https://twitter.com/diasporadical_z/status/898605348495302656

https://twitter.com/BronwenDickey/status/898604277576245248

With no Klan in sight, the crowd milled about, chanting, drumming, burning a confederate flag, sharing ice cream and lemonade (thank you to whoever brought that!), and tagging the base of the recently destroyed monument. At one point a couple men sporting confederate insignias were surrounded and chased into the basement of the courthouse; later on when those same men left they were escorted out by peace police who physically held back black youth trying to reach them.

It was clear from the conversations and creative array of tools present that folks came for a fight, however that fight didn’t happen, as the Klan never really showed, but the tone of the day felt victorious nonetheless. More and more folks rolled into the crowd in groups from east durham later in the day, and that crowd eventually led a second march on police headquarters. As of right now, it seems that there was maybe one arrest for refusal to disperse. There are also unconfirmed reports that a few Klan showed up many hours later, after the crowd went home, to briefly say a few slogans and quickly leave.

https://twitter.com/aaronbelz/status/898584454410584069

We learned today that in an emergency durham can assemble over five hundred folks in a matter of hours to hold the streets and fight back if need be. Masking up, antifascist and anarchist symbols, tactics, and messaging, are all increasingly accepted and ubiquitous, even as outdated and reactionary ways of viewing “protest” such as peace police and the like remain obstacles.

#DefendDurham and death to the klan!
#AntiFascistMeansAntiState

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