A Black Lives Matter activist has lost his job at a Tennessee library after allegedly burning books by conservative authors.
Cameron Williams, known by his rapper name “C-Grimey,” was placed on paid administrative leave by the Chattanooga Public Library in December 2020 because of an Instagram video of him apparently burning copies of “How to Talk to a Liberal” by conservative commentator Ann Coulter and “Crippled America” by then-President Donald Trump, as “FDT,” an anti-Trump anthem by YG and Nipsey Hussle, plays in the background.
A part-time library specialist who worked at the Chattanooga Public Library for two years, Williams was fired following an investigation that found the books he burned were actually from the library, reported Chattanooga Times Free Press.
“The City of Chattanooga Human Resources Department completed its investigation of an allegation that books were removed from the Chattanooga Public Library’s Main Branch on Dec. 1, 2020,” the library said in a statement to the Free Press. “The investigation determined that [Williams] violated City and Library policies by improperly removing items from the Library’s collections.”
“The City of Chattanooga has policies in place to protect the public’s interest, and we follow those directives,” the statements read.
Williams, who was arrested in July 2020 and charged with inciting a riot which blocked an emergency vehicle on its way to a crash site with injuries, told the Free Press he believes that he didn’t violate any library policy, and that the decision to fire him was a retaliation from the library and community members who don’t agree with his politics.
“I really believe that this was political. It’s definitely a perpetuation of white supremacy,” he said. “None of this would have never ever ever been a problem if someone who doesn’t believe in me speaking for equality for black people wouldn’t have reported it.”
Prior to his July 2020 arrest, Williams led a campaign to put a Chattanooga-Area restaurant out of business because of reports that the restaurateur had been preparing to donate an order worth $1,000 to a pro-police “Back the Blue” rally. It was later clarified that the deal with the pro-police group was not a donation, but a regular business transaction.
“A lady placed an order Tuesday for food for Saturday. She said she was taking it to the ‘Back the Blue’ rally in Chattanooga. It was just a business transaction. We did not donate the food,” Madison Davis, daughter of restaurant owner Jeff, told the Tennessee Star.
The restaurant was then flooded by negative online reviews, harassment, and threatening phone calls that Davis said had prompted employees to take “drastic measures” to defend themselves.
“We finally got a threat that someone was going to burn our building down where we smoke all of our meat in. That is when we decided to cancel. We didn’t want to do the transaction anymore,” Davis said.
