While doing so, Taylor says she asked a Nellie’s employee if they could facilitate a meeting between Young and the bar’s White owner, Douglas Schantz. Taylor was only able to retrieve her phone. Nee Nee Taylor, a co-conductor with Harriet’s Dreams (a Black-led abolitionist community defense hub that centers Black lives and liberation in the D.C. The protest also served as an opportunity for Young to attempt to retrieve her personal belongings-her phone and glasses-from the bar.
Outraged by the graphic footage they saw, locals used social media to organize a Sunday evening protest outside of Nellie’s. Video also shows a few observers, later identified as the cousins of Young, jump in and a fight ensues between them and security. Posted on Instagram early Sunday, cell phone video appears to show Nellie’s security personnel dragging a Black woman, later identified as 22-year-old Keisha Young, down the stairs by her limbs. (A lawyer for Young says security grabbed her by the hair.) You can hear patrons scream, “Oh my God” as they watch. The family of the young woman is also pursuing a civil claim against the bar.
Video of the incident went viral on social media, and now some locals are protesting and boycotting Nellie’s Sports Bar located at 900 U Street NW. on 6/14: This story has been updated to include a statement from Nellie’s.ĭuring Pride weekend in D.C., security at a well known gay bar forcibly removed a Black woman by dragging her down a flight of stairs.