Solange Deletes Twitter Account, Shows Support for Durham Protesters

Solange Knowles tweeted support to Durham activists before deleting her account on Tuesday. “Deleting my Twitter soon, but before I dip — when we gonna pull up?” she wrote. “And what we got to do to get my new hero Takiyah Thompson free?”

Thompson is a 22-year-old activist who was arrested Tuesday in connection with the Monday night protest that toppled a Confederate statue in Durham County, North Carolina. She was charged with participation in a riot with property damage in excess of $1,500 and for inciting others to riot where property damage exceeds $1,500; both counts are considered felonies. Thompson was also charged with damage to real property and disorderly conduct by injury to a statue, which are considered misdemeanors.

In a video that went viral late Monday evening, Thompson can be seen scaling a ladder and wrapping a rope around the statue, which her fellow protesters then used to topple the Confederate Soldiers Monument. “I’m tired of white supremacy keeping its foot on my neck and the necks of people like me,” she said during a press conference prior to her arrest. “That statue glorifies the conditions that oppressed people live in, and it had to go.”

In response to the uproar surrounding Thompson’s arrest, Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews said Tuesday that he and his deputies were going to pursue charges against other protesters they could identify and track down. “Let me be clear, no one is getting away with what happened,” he said during a separate press conference. “We will find the people responsible. We can all agree yesterday went too far. Yesterday was not the Durham that I know.”

Knowles, who has not deleted her Instagram account, shared a longer message against white supremacists and Nazis. “My son’s first day of school has been in the midst of seeing these bullshit images that still tell him this system was built to be against him,” she wrote. “Thinking bout demanding he not be required to take American History because its deep dark rooted ugliness continues to live right now, right before our eyes.”