Veteran left-wing vandals in North Carolina are holding a conference this weekend in Durham to teach young, up-and-coming vandals how to topple statues.
The two-day conference, titled “How to Topple a Statue, How to Tear Down a Wall,” was organized by a far-left group called “Defend Durham.”
This comes after members of that group and other leftist organizations toppled the “Silent Sam” statue at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
According to Far Left Watch, Defend Durham supports the #AbolishICE movement and works closely with local antifa groups.
Their conference will include “workshops, political discussions, and actions” to combat perceived white supremacy, according to the event’s Facebook page:
We hope you can join us for this powerful event in the month of August. Solidarity forever! Fighting White Supremacy is Not a Crime! Abolish ICE! Abolish the Police! Tear Down the Walls!
The conference may be short some speakers this weekend, unfortunately, as UNC-Chapel Hill Police announced Friday that they have filed warrants charging three people in connection with that Silent Sam “protest.”
The warrants charge the three with misdemeanor riot and misdemeanor defacing of a public monument, according to a UNC police statement.
The three people named in the warrants, who have not been publicly identified because they have not yet been arrested, are not affiliated with the university, UNC Police spokesman Randy Young said in an email.
Turns out that their way of fighting “white supremacy” is a crime. Although, according to an op-ed at CNN, the toppling of the “Silent Sam” statue “showed the students’ strength.”
Defend Durham is showing their “strength” by hosting a “How to Topple a Statue” conference and inviting “organizers, freedom fighters, and community members from all over” to join them “for a Commemorative One Year Anniversary Gathering to Honor Charlottesville, Defend Durham, and Smash White Supremacy!”
The conference also aims to organize a coalition of malcontents to fight for the abolition of ICE, the police, and prisons.
Black people, people of color, immigrants, and working class people continue to come under intensified attacks. From police killings to raids and deportations, eviction crises and gentrification, to mass incarceration and unemployment, the need for solidarity is more crucial than ever.
Black August provides us all with a mandate to connect these struggles, to raise the banner which calls for the abolition of ICE, police, and prisons; and to build a different world that is built with the power of the people, the power of the workers, and the power of all oppressed people.
The Facebook page features a list of radical left-wing organizations that have endorsed the conference, including Marxist-Leninist groups like Workers World Party, and Party for Socialism and Liberation.
Defend Durham
Stop Killing Us (SKU)
Comite de Accion Popular (Raleigh)
Fighting for Im/Migrants and Refugees Everywhere (FIRE)
Movement to End Racism and Islamophobia (MERI)
Raise Up for $15
Take Em Down Jax
NC Environmental Justice Network
Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
North Carolina Green Party
Triangle SURJ
Coalition for Health Care of NC
Take ‘Em Down Nola
National Black Conference
NC National Lawyers Guild
Silent Sam Sit-In
Workers World Party
People’s Revolutionary United Collective (Charlotte)
Party for Socialism and Liberation
Anna Malinowski, Charlottesville SURJ
Maya Little, Chapel Hill defendant in Silent Sam case
As Far Left Watch points out, this type of “activism” has escalated in the United States in recent years.
Last year, one antifa organization launched a nationwide campaign to destroy Christopher Columbus statues that resulted in multiple statues being defaced and destroyed.
With the coming of fall, we are approaching peak statue-tipping and vandalizing season, so police will need to be vigilant.
As far as the “Silent Sam” toppling is concerned, the UNC Police investigation is still ongoing. According to UNC Police spokesman Randy Young, “additional arrests may occur.”
I can think of an event this weekend that police investigators might want to check out.
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