Activist disrupts Taking Cheapside premiere, says she was “erased” from documentary

Lexington,Ky-On Saturday October 15, filmmaker Elijah McKenzie held a premiere for his new documentary at The Lyric Theater in Lexington. The film, Taking Cheapside, depicts the story of the organizers who fought to get the Confederate statues removed from Cheapside Park.

A trailer for the film that was posted prior to the screening prominently features two organizers, Russell Allen and Debraun Thomas.

According to a WUKY report that was released prior to the premiere, “In 2017 Elijah McKenzie, a filmmaker out of Louisville reached out to Russell and Thomas about a piece he was producing that focused on Confederate monuments.”

He had kind of met with a couple of academics in Lexington and in Louisville to getting the academic side of things and then you know at that point in time we were in the midst of working on the removal of the monuments here.” Thomas said, “So this short story ended up turning into a full length documentary feature as Elijah just kind of kept coming back to Lexington for supplemental things and every time he came back something else was happening. So he was here the night of the city council meeting. He was here the night the statues were removed. He was here for several of our events of the Reimagine Cheapside phase.

Debraun Thomas, WUKY report

The two men were successful in their efforts, and the statues came down in 2017. The Herald Leader captured their reactions when the statues came down.

Activist says she was intentionally left out of premiere screening

April Taylor is a local activist and organizer. She first got involved in the work after Michael Brown was murdered by police in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. She went on to lead many organizing efforts in Lexington and even occasionally writes for the Herald Leader.

Taylor says she was involved in the efforts depicted in the documentary as well, but was “erased” by the male organizers who were depicted. During the Q&A portion of the premiere, Taylor became upset and began shouting over one of their responses to an audience question that wondered, “would the statues still be standing if black women or queer or trans people of color led the movement?” The Q&A was eventually shut down and the audience was asked to go home.

When reached by phone, Taylor rattled off a slew of accomplishments when asked for a few examples of things black women or queer or trans people of color had achieved in Lexington. She said they had: