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COLIN PERRY
Editor in Chief
It was the morning before Fall Break, a time when most students are on their way to class or heading home for a long weekend. Nearly two-dozen students who had gathered in front of Gregory Hall had a different plan.
“No justice, no peace,” the students chanted, “no corrupt police!”
Holding signs with phrases like “I Can’t Breathe” and “Black Lives Matter” emblazoned on them, a group of student activists protested what they see as institutional problems between the University and its black student population. For around 20 minutes, the group marched within the crosswalk connecting Gregory Hall and University Commons. While some cars had been attempting to drive through that route, all of them were blocked and forced to turn around.
The protesters moved from the crosswalk down Old Main Drive toward the Williams Center, where they began marching around a University Police vehicle which had been parked there. Shortly after, they entered what senior social work major and protest organizer Kalif Crutcher called “phase two” of the protest: a silent sit-in on the floor of the main lobby of McEwen Hall. In the third phrase, students marched once more, this time through Fenton Hall. Together, last Wednesday’s protests and the reaction since have collectively and simply been dubbed “The Event.”
According to Crutcher, The Event was born out of student and organizer Monica Manney’s desire to continue on from the Black Student Union’s vigil on Sept. 28 and to bring the issues at the heart of Black Lives Matter to widespread attention on campus
“People who were comfortable enough to recognize social injustice, to recognize the unarmed black men and women who’ve been killed by the police … they all attended the Black Lives Matter vigil,” Crutcher said. “What this event was geared to do was to get into the faces of those who did not attend the vigil. It was to make those people uncomfortable, who otherwise would go on their normal day without recognizing the black lives on SUNY Fredonia’s campus.”
While the planning of The Event, according to Crutcher, only consisted of a little over a week’s time, another one of its organizers, senior history major Jayla Williams, said that it was the culmination of years of black students’ experiences.
“[The Event has] been in the works since the day I came to Fredonia and I realized that this is not the Fredonia that the world needs to see, and this is not a Fredonia that is welcoming to black students,” Williams said.
Crutcher and Williams both also stressed that The Event was not sponsored by BSU or any club on campus, but rather was the effort of independent students, including several non-black allies.
“This is not just a bunch of black kids shouting and screaming. We care,” said Crutcher.
Along with The Event comes an eight-point plan, slated for release this week, to address issues facing black students at Fredonia. Some of the elements of the plan include addressing a lack of representation of black faculty and staff, make the retention and recruitment of black students a focus and the establishment of an African-American studies major program. Crutcher said that he expects many of these goals to take some time before they could even possibly be met, but that students plan on holding the University accountable.
“The eight-point plan is not something that we expect to be implemented this semester or next semester. There are some things that will take time,” Crutcher said. “[But] my parents attended Fredonia about 30, 35 years ago, and a lot of the same stuff they had to go through when they were here, we’re going through now. It’s not enough for Fredonia’s administration to tell us that they’re working on it.”
Of course, another primary goal of The Event was to protest police brutality across the country and to call peoples’ attention to issues which don’t necessarily directly affect the Fredonia community.
“Eric Garner is unable to use his voice. Trayvon Martin is unable to use his voice. Tamir Rice is unable to use his voice,” Crutcher said. “So while the University Police may not have shot and killed an unarmed black man, we put it on the forefront that their lives mattered.”
Crutcher said that the backlash he and others have received for The Event has come “100 percent” from students, and that the University’s administration reached out with support shortly after the protest concluded. He and others involved with The Event are now in talks with University administrators on how to address the issues identified in the eight-point plan.
“The ball is rolling … they heard us, and now they’re going to hear us more,” Crutcher said.
Correction: A previous version of this article did not mention that student Monica Manney was one of the organizers of The Event.