NEW YORK, NY – Color Of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice group, responds to today’s news that Simon & Schuster has cancelled their book deal with noted white supremacist and internet troll Milo Yiannopoulos.

Color Of Change launched a petition, now with over 50,000 signatures, calling on Simon & Schuster to drop Yiannopoulos’s contract and directed their members to call Simon & Schuster’s executive offices to register their objections, resulting in over a thousand calls to the publisher in recent weeks.

Today, Color Of Change also rolled out a targeted ad campaign directed at Simon & Schuster employees, authors, and supporters, which criticizes the company for profiting from hate speech.

Statement from Rashad Robinson, Executive Director of Color Of Change:

“Milo Yiannopoulos’s poisonous campaign of hate directed at women, people of color, immigrants and LGBTQ communities has no place in our country. White supremacists should not be getting six-figure deals to promote their views, and corporations should not make a profit off a two-bit Internet shock jock whose only brand is hate. Internet trolls cannot be given a larger platform to peddle their dangerous world views under the guise of free speech while hate crimes are on the rise and people of color face daily threats to their lives.

For weeks, our members made over a thousand calls to the Simon & Schuster offices to make one thing clear: any corporation that continues to provide money and a megaphone to those who only seek to spread hate speech are enabling the violence and vitriol directed at marginalized communities. Cancelling Yiannopoulos’s book deal is the first step in the many we must take to decrease the mainstream platform of white supremacy. Simon & Schuster made the right decision in responding to weeks of pressure and a growing list of allegations against Yiannopoulos, and today made a commitment to stop the hateful rhetoric that can empower a racist and violent agenda. Make no mistake, our communities will not stand for any corporations that aim to make a buck off white supremacy, and we will continue to hold them accountable for the ways they stand to make a profit at the expense of our lives.”