Photo credit @ITSRAIL_ on Instagram

Donations for legal defense can be sent here.

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Wednesday, five people at North Carolina Central University were brutally tackled, carried away, and arrested by police for protesting housing conditions on campus. The Working People’s Association and Charlotte Metro Neighborhood Defense stand in unwavering solidarity with students at the university who have been the targets of threats and now police violence and arrests. These tactics are all part of a campaign by the university and the UNC school system to muzzle the voices of their own students and professors who are speaking out against abysmal housing conditions on campus.

For the past year, many students at North Carolina Central University have struggled to get on-campus housing, and those who did receive it found themselves living in deplorable conditions in dorm rooms with mold, frequent flooding, cockroaches, broken appliances, overflowing garbage, and countless other issues all while, paying an ever-increasing amount for this housing.

On Sunday, the Student Panthers Durham, a revolutionary student organization committed to fighting against U.S. imperialism and national oppression, called for a protest “for better housing.” The university immediately began to attempt to silence their own students. Vice Chancellor Angela Coleman sent a message issuing threats of legal action and arrests against the organization and students at the university if they held the protest. Of course, in typical liberal fashion, the student government organized a counter-event sanctioned by the university and student government officials in a failed attempt to divert students from protesting.

In defiance of the university, students, community members, and professors held a protest on campus Wednesday, which hundreds of people attended. Before the protest even began, a multi-department law enforcement effort was organized, and police surrounded the location of the protest. During the protest, police brutally tackled, handcuffed, physically carried away and arrested at least five people.

This is act of repression against HBCU students is not surprising; over the past year, thousands of students were arrested, suspended, and expelled at student protests and encampments for Palestine, and just over the past few weeks, nearly a thousand students have had their student visas revoked. Repression against students, especially Black, Brown, and immigrant students, is only heightening. White supremacy is baked into the core of the UNC university system: the 1789 Act, which established the state’s first university, was written almost entirely by slave owners and black students weren’t able to attend most UNC universities until the late 1950s. 

The leadership of universities is firmly vested in the interests of the U.S. ruling class. In stark contrast to capitalist propaganda, which labels them as “leftist indoctrination chambers,” universities play a vital role in upholding the capitalist system and promoting the faux dream of upward mobility for the working class.

Of course, the student housing struggle is connected to the overall housing struggle of working-class people. The Working People’s Association and Charlotte Metro Neighborhood Defense remain unwavering in our support of the students at North Carolina Central University facing immense repression. We will continue to provide updates on how to show support as things develop. Donations for legal defense can be sent here.

Drop the charges on the Durham 5!

Build up the worker-student alliance!

Signed, 

Charlotte Metro Neighborhood Defense

Working People’s Association of Charlotte