WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — The Houston and Macon-Bibb County branches of the NAACP are calling for a GBI investigation against Houston County-based coach Mark Taylor "for terroristic threats" against Black people, the organization said in a press release.
"Mark Taylor should not coach anyone's children," the statement said. "We denounce racial hatred toward any person or race."
A video went viral showing the former teacher at Northside Middle School making a series of racist remarks while driving around Atlanta. The video received thousands of shares on Facebook.
"Ain't seen a white person in sight. Homeless ones on the street. Every restaurant looking in here is Black. Every car beside me is Black. They can have Atlanta," Taylor said in the video.
But Taylor's remarks went further including a section showing him throwing racist slurs at a Black driver and saying someone named "Roe" would hang the driver from a tree.
Taylor said that a person the video was being sent to should "come up here and go hunting."
"Ain't nothing but Black people," Taylor said in the video. "It's all that up here."
The local NAACP branches took particular issue with Taylor's "hunting" comments and called for the GBI to investigate the comments as a terroristic threat.
"The lynching of Black people and hunting Black people down in Atlanta to kill them to reduce the Black population in Atlanta," the statement said. "The NAACP was organized 114 years ago due violence against black people including lynching, and today Mark Taylor has expressed racial hatred in hanging and hunting Black people."
The statement, coming Macon-Bibb County NAACP branch president Gwenette Westbrooks, is also asking the GBI to look into whether the students that Taylor coached experienced any racial prejudice.
"He had a training facility in Macon and Warner Robins where parents trusted their children with him," the statement said. "As we often know, sometimes, students keep silent about things like this when they are trying to excel in fear parents will remove them from that type of environment."
Taylor was fired from Northside Middle School in Warner Robins in 2007 and was accused of stalking and harassing his ex-fiancée who also worked at the school. He was fired by Houston County Schools from his teaching and coaching jobs and was even banished from the county.
Also in 2007, he pled guilty to a felony charge of influencing a witness.
"Some people may say he helped a lot Black students, but Mark Taylor benefited from these students, and that was his focus, but this does not change the hatred he has for Black people," the statement said. "He has expressed his true feelings and this is what concerns the NAACP."
The Houston and Macon-Bibb chapters of the NAACP also held a press conference today denouncing Taylor's comments.
The Georgia State Conference NAACP is in full support of the Macon Bibb and Houston County stand on this issue and will also be releasing a statement.