At the place where Martin Luther King went to school, students rally for his dream

It was drizzling and the clouds were gray, but it didn’t matter. From the College of Arts and Sciences, students linked arms and marched up Comm Ave to Marsh Plaza where more students were already waiting.

With voices strong and clear, the procession never faltered:

“ M-I-Z-Z-O-U!”

“What do we want?”

“Justice!”

“When do we want it?”

“Now!”

“M-I-Z-Z-O-U!”

The chants filled the open sky as we came together in Marsh. The infamous seal no one was supposed to step on, completely forgotten.

Students from BU and other colleges alike had their attention solely on the two young women who stood front and center, TayAndrea Nicole Jackson, and Yasmin Younis.

TayAndrea, along with Grace Kim created the event on Facebook which had over one thousand people interested, and the turn out, even greater.  

TayAndrea began by thanking everyone for coming to the blackout, and introduced Yasmin as the first speaker.

Yasmin is a sophomore in CAS majoring in International Relations, but the previous year had attended university with the very students we were standing in solidarity with. She started off by thanking everyone for coming to the blackout, from the bottom of her heart.

“What has been occurring over these past few weeks has affected me personally, because I used to be a Mizzou Tiger,” she said. 

She experienced the environment firsthand. 

She told the crowd: “I want to make it abundantly clear, that Mizzou is an amazing institution regardless of how the administration handle incredible sensitive issues.”

Yasmin got the crowd fired, but TayAndrea was the next one to speak up.

TeAndrea told us how she had the honor and pleasure of meeting Sybil Morial, a woman who lived through the years of Jim Crow laws, and now lives in a country with a black president, the night before.

She read us something from Morial that gave me chills, and confirmed that at that moment, that was exactly where I wanted and needed to be,

Her voice was unwavering: “To the students of color at Mizzou, we, the students of color at Boston University, stand with you in solidarity.

“To the black students at Howard University, we, the students of Boston University, stand with you in Solidarity. To Students of color—to people of color everywhere—we stand with you.

“To our white allies, we say: no more. No more silent bystanders. If you stand with us—if you walk with us—walk all the way. Stand through all of it.”

Snaps and claps could be heard among the murmurs and shouts of agreement.

“Too long have people of color been silenced in this country. Too long have black people lived in fear in this country. Too long have we been treated like the perpetual enemy of the American state. Too long have we been terrorized and persecuted on the basis of our race.”

“So today, we say enough.”

As her voice rose, and the crowd’s energy increased everything just felt right.

We were there, and we were fighting for what we believed in and no matter how insignificant it could potentially have seemed to outsiders, it meant the world to us.

TayAndrea left us with these final words: “Here we stand, arms linked in unity against hate. Enough. Enough hate. Enough fear. Enough. It has been too long and we are too tired to continue living like this. Enough.”

And then we raised our fists in unity.

I can’t describe the feeling of seeing so many people in one place, for one cause, wholeheartedly believing in something so strong.  It felt like myself and other people of color mattered, because guess what, we do.

After the crowd dispersed to the Coffee and Convo at the Howard Thurman Center, I caught up with TeAndrea for an interview.

“I just want to say, to anyone who thinks that they’re alone and the racial prejudice that they are facing, to anyone who thinks that the battle is too large, too hard for them to fight, we are here. We are standing next to you and we are going to fight along side you.

“This is something that has to end, I want it to end in my lifetime. I want to continue Martin Luther King’s dream. We are standing where Martin Luther King went to school. We are standing there, and I want to continue what he started. I want this dream to be fulfilled . His dream is now my dream.

“There is absolutely no reason, there’s absolutely no way, that students can feel terrorized and we not do anything about it. There’s absolutely no way that we can continue allowing these threats to happen and just go on with our lives.

“There’s no way. And so I want people to think, people who are thinking that we are just moving on with our lives, we are not moving on with our lives and we will stop everything until this is finished, that we will change our entire lives, we will change our entire trajectory, until this is finished.”

She’s right, we cannot and will not stop until this is finished.

– Yasmine Ghanem

Following the Blackout demonstration in Marsh Plaza, I went to the Coffee and Conversation at the HTC.

Students discussed personal experiences with racial profiling at stores and at the airport, to opinions about student government, administrators, and students at BU.

When I first got to the Coffee and Convo, there were so many students there. Every seat was taken, people were sitting on the floor, and standing wherever they could just to fit, even on top of chairs in the back so they could see.

It was difficult to hear at times because there were so many students, but usually one person would shout ‘speak up,’ and that would fix the problem.

For those of you who have not been to a Coffee and Convo before, if you are called on to speak, you state your name, year in school, and major.

Normally you hear from mostly undergrads and a few graduate students. At yesterday’s Coffee and Convo, there were not just undergrads and grad students, but alumni and faculty, too.

Throughout the conversation, students brought up memories of being treated differently based on how they look.

One student talked of why his parents gave him a more western name because they feared he would be discriminated against throughout his life.

“My parents gave me my name, Alvi, so I wouldn’t have to deal with any issues having a brown sounding name”

A girl talked about her experience as an international student and realizing privilege exists. There was talk about power and its relationship with privilege.

At the end of every Coffee and Convo, organizers leave time to think about steps to take to change what needs to be changed and what types of action you want to do and see.

There were many students who wanted to speak, so many they couldn’t let everyone talk.

Students said things like “don’t just be a social media warrior” and “let’s dismantle white fraternities and sororities. Let’s dismantle black fraternities and sororities.”

Overall, there was a lot of good constructive things said that anyone can do in their everyday life.

After the Coffee and Convo, I talked with Grace, one of the hosts of the Blackout demonstration. I asked her about how she and TeAndrea came up with the event and also what kind of things she wants BU to start doing to improve the school for everyone in it.

“Honestly, it was kind of an accident. Te and I were in the Howard Thurman center and looking up the hashtag concerned student 1950 and I saw an event called the black out, everyone wear black and congregate in one space. I suggested it to Te and she said ‘sure, let’s make it a facebook event’ and we co hosted it. I uploaded the picture, she made the details of the whole thing, and it just blew up.

“I keep telling this to everyone, but if we hadn’t done it, someone else would have. It’s not like our complete hosting job, it’s everyone who went to the event.

“A lot of the time the conversation seems to be cathartic conversation on race and what race really looks like on campus, but I feel like there’s something lacking in what we can do institutionally at BU. I think that there is a lot we can do about the courses that are offered here and the course selection; the faculty, so there is more representation of minorities in the faculty and they will be more willing to teach certain types of topics.

“Students will be more interested in these topics that aren’t traditionally taught on this campus, a lot of ethnic studies classes, things about one’s heritage are so important. If we had that as a part of a mandatory requirement as a student at BU.

“Wherever you find your passion in creating change on this campus, whether or not it’s race related, find that place and put your heart into because that’s how you make positive change on campus.”

– Gabrielle Turi