dsc history

In 2010, the impacts of the severe economic collapse that began two years prior were still ravaging communities across North Carolina, the U.S., and the world. A strong and powerful anti-war movement that had been in the streets since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was waning, as new organizing initiatives began springing up in response to the economic crisis and other attacks being brought against our people. The Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movement sprang up a short time later, and Wake County high school students were in the midst of a powerful campaign to challenge a right-wing majority on the school board that sought to resegregate schools.

In the midst of these and other developments that were radicalizing people and bringing new activists into movements for social change, a group of organizers and community organizations established the Durham Solidarity Center. They observed that, with so many new people coming into the movements and the growth of existing organizations, there were few spaces for activists to gather, work, and build community together. The folks who founded the DSC sought to fill that gap.

What initially began in a small office on the third floor of the Snow Building in downtown Durham quickly grew, and moved to a new home in the basement of the historic Hayti Heritage Center, before settling in its current location in the Lakewood neighborhood. Over the years, the DSC has provided meeting space for community groups and activists, access to materials for signs and printing, equipment rental for demonstrations and other events, a radical community lending library, as well as office space for grassroots groups. The DSC has also hosted community events and game nights to build relationships across networks. In addition, the DSChas initiated and helped to co-sponsor various political activities in Durham and throughout the Triangle. 

Several years after its founding, the DSC became a go to meeting space and resource hub for grassroots movement building, and has been proud to provide support to Occupy encampments, Black organizers who mobilized and built organization in response to the police murder of Mike Brown, community activists who toppled the Confederate monument in front of the old courthouse, the Triangle Unity May Day coalition that initiated International Workers Day demonstrations and people’s assemblies, youth and student organizers fighting budget cuts and tuition hikes, family and friends of Carlos Riley, Jr. who was framed by Durham police, and so much more. The DSC also founded the Freedom Fighter Bond Fund to support activists arrested at political demonstrations, which is now housed within Emancipate NC.

As the world around us and our movements have changed substantially since 2010, so too is the Durham Solidarity Center – moving into a new physical home and adopting a new name, the People’s Solidarity Hub – Durham.