The Durham county school board has apparently considered changing its meeting attendance policies in order to accommodate members choosing to engage in activist events over board meetings.

The Center for Digital Ed’s report reiterated Wake County School Board ‘making history’  with the “remote participation in board meetings”.  The Center for Digital Ed’s article continued, noting that the Durham school board also had members who participate in meetings remotely, but “they do so without the benefit of such a board policy.” and that “Durham board members utilize the state’s Open Meetings Law,”.

One of the main reasons Durham appears to be considering official policy changes with regards to meetings is over the lack of attendance by member Sendolo Diaminah.  It appears that Diaminah, who in 2014 campaigned on the claim he would be a voice for the community, is literally ‘phoning it in’ when it comes to his school board obligations.

According to the article Diaminah missed the majority of the meetings (9 of 16) due to being a Black Lives Matter organizer:

  “Diaminah told The Herald-Sun that he has missed meetings due to out-of-town travel as part of his work as a national organizer with the Black Lives Matter movement.”

According to KeyWiki, Sendolo is a, “black, queer communist” who is “living and organizing in Durham, North Carolina.”.

This description lines up with Sendolo’s author bio at Huffington Post:

Sendolo Diaminah (aka Lola) is a butch queen organizer and aspiring movement strategist who has been practicing organizing and studying social movements/transformation for ten years. His work has been focused mainly on democracy and the public sector, specifically public housing and public education.

KeyWiki continues, stating that, “Sendolo Diaminah is General Secretary of Freedom Road Socialist Organization and an organizer with People’s Durham, a new organization committed to building a participatory democracy led by low-income people and people of color.”.

Sendolo is also active in the NC NAACP’s Moral Monday movement and was cited by The Nation as a “Community Organizer” with the Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity.

Sendolo was part of a ‘documentary series’ called “Truth. Be. Told.”. The series “seeks to reclaim the birthright of Queer Black visionaries within our families and communities by providing a platform for out, Black LGBTQ people to tell their personal stories of challenge, radical self-inquiry, transformation, and triumph.”. View the trailer.

Both Freedom Road Socialist Org and People’s Durham appear to be mainly financed by the Institute for Southern Studies.

People’s Durham is known as the Durham People’s Alliance. The organization is affiliated with the Durham Solidarity Center, which maintains a bail money fund for those arrested at Black Lives Matter protests.

Other affiliates of People’s Durham include the ‘school to prison pipeline’ protest outfits like Youth Organizing Institute and the communist group, World Workers Party.

On July 21st, World Workers Party teamed up with dozens of Left leaning organizations to take part in a Black Lives Matter protest hosted by ‘Durham Beyond Policing’.  Many of these organizations appear to have the same people running them and much of their staff seem to overlap as well.

Parents and voters may want to question Sendolo. who was elected in 2014 with 44% of the vote, on his priorities as his attendance would indicate that the schools of Durham county do not appear to be one of them.

By his own admission, Sendolo has no children of his own and his resume does not appear to have any education background.  In fact all background information gathered points to Sendolo as mainly a professional protester/agitator.