SOLIDARITY WITH MS. YVETTE
On May 17th, 2022, our community elder and mentor, Ms. Yvette Boulware (who is 62 years old) was unjustly and violently arrested by Forsyth County Court bailiffs while conducting court watch and support on behalf of two community members. The community members had hearings for their 2020 civil disobedience arrests connected to demanding action after the brutal murder of John Neville by Forsyth County Sheriff’s Deputies. Ms. Yvette is a lifetime activist who worked alongside the late Congressman John Lewis. In court, she was tackled and assaulted by six bailiffs after an exchange originating over sunglasses that she had placed on top of her head. She was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon (the alleged weapon is a ballpoint pen) on a government officer and misdemeanor resisting a public officer. She is facing more than 4 years in prison for these charges. She was also sentenced to 24 hours in jail for a direct contempt of court charge and was incarcerated in the Forsyth County Detention Center for more than 31 hours until her release on May 18th, 2022 at 10:15pm. Triad Abolition Project held watch for the entirety of those 31 hours outside the detention center. No one, including her son, was able to speak with her or get any updates on her wellbeing during the entire period of her incarceration. During her incarceration, she was held in the maximum security section of the jail, strip searched, shackled any time she left the cell, and potentially exposed to Covid. She sought medical attention for multiple injuries sustained during the violent arrest after her release at a local hospital. As of October 2023, the case is still ongoing.
WHO WE ARE:
Triad Abolition Project is a grassroots organization committed to dismantling the carceral state, building communities committed to care and compassion, and dreaming of liberation together. We work in solidarity with and for incarcerated and criminalized folks, and those vulnerable to criminalization and state violence through direct action, civic engagement, political education, and healing and transformative justice initiatives. We organize to reduce and eliminate the harm and violence of the criminal punishment system, to imagine safety and care beyond the carceral state, and to support the efforts of sibling organizations doing critical work fighting against carcerality.
We know that the abolition of the carceral state is a radical practice and long-term project. We consider it our duty to share with our community what we know, and we treat abolition as a constant learning experience and experiment as we (re)imagine our communities together. We are committed to thorough research, strategic organizing, and courageous action. We are a grassroots organization committed to full financial transparency, with no intention of becoming a 501c3.; our quarterly financial reports since we were founded in June 2020 can be viewed here.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES:
We are committed to both the structural and internal work needed to engage in action guided by our commitments. As Mariame Kaba reminds us, “When we set out trying to transform society, we must remember that we ourselves will also need to transform.”
We are committed to the abolition of the carceral state
We are firmly rooted in the traditions of abolition feminism, Black radical feminism, and Black queer feminism
We are firmly anti-carceral
We are firmly anti-capitalist
We are firmly anti-imperialist
We are firmly committed to disability justice
We are firmly committed to environmental justice
We are firmly committed to healing justice
We are firmly committed to im/migrant rights
We are firmly committed to LGBTQIA+ liberation
We are firmly committed to reproductive justice
We are guided by practices of accountability, collectivism, mutual aid, and transformative justice. We expect white comrades to be traitors to white supremacy, cisgender and straight comrades to be traitors to homophobia and transphobia, men comrades to be traitors to patriarchy, financially privileged comrades to be traitors to class hierarchies, able-bodied comrades to be traitors to ableism, and US-born comrades to be traitors to nativism. You can read our full statement of commitments here.
