The Georgetown University Black Leadership Forum mounted a Week of Action this week to reflect on recent events in Ferguson, Mo., and draw attention to racial and criminal justice issues following a week of protests in Washington, D.C., that included a march in Georgetown last Saturday.
Almost 200 students took part in the Week of Action to protest the St. Louis grand jury’s Nov. 24 decision not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown.
The Week of Action consisted of a walkout and 4.5 minutes of silence in Red Square beginning at 1:07 p.m. on Monday, the time of Brown’s shooting in August; a Day of Action to Stop Police Brutality on Wednesday, where participants contacted elected officials calling for reform in police practices, including the demilitarization of U.S. law enforcement and the mandated front-facing body cameras while on duty; and an HIV screening and letter writing campaign to Michael Brown’s family, followed by a Black Student Alliance Kwanzaa Dinner on Thursday.
On Friday, participants will engage in Freedom Friday, a day of “civil disobedience and demonstration,” according to the Facebook event.
Georgetown NAACP President Mikaela Ferrill (COL ’15) identified the dual educational and practical aims of the Week of Action.
“Being taught in the classroom is very important. Sometimes being in people’s face about things is a great strategy to bring issues to the forefront, and so that’s been kind of why we have a mixture of both educational components and visual demonstrations, because sometimes you need to bring demonstrations to people for them to actually see and understand what’s going on,” she said.
Khadijah Davis (NHS ’15), president of GU Women of Color and a member of the GU Black Leadership Forum, said that the Week of Action, which was inspired by demonstrations happening nationwide since August, was intended as a means to continue the conversation about race and justice on campus.
“We are ultimately hoping to encourage both campus-wide dialogue and compassion for each other,” Davis wrote in an email. “Many members of our campus community need a time to talk, a time to engage in open discourse with one another. We needed a time to conceptualize the gravity of the situation in Ferguson and the hundreds like it, and a time to heal.”
Davis said that the events this week were planned to open up a safe space on campus to talk about the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in August and other issues of race across the country.
Coinciding with the Week of Action was the decision of a Staten Island grand jury on Thursday not to indict a white New York police officer in the death by chokehold of 43-year-old Eric Garner, which incited further protests around the country and in the District.
“All of the events were planned with the intention to create a safe space on campus to talk about the incredibly heartbreaking and traumatizing events taking place in our country. The killing of Mike Brown is not an isolated incident. There are Mike Browns in all of our states and in many of our cities,” Davis wrote. “With them and the hundreds of others in mind, we wanted to plan these events to finally give people the space to talk with an open heart and mind and to think actively about how we can help salvage our communities all across the country.”
Despite the high levels of participation in the Week of Action, BLF members faced opposition as well. A collage including photos of people killed by police violence and law enforcement statistics, which was hung in Red Square on Monday, was torn down on Wednesday around 5 p.m. After being reposted, the collage was again torn down.
“Following the candlelight vigil on Wednesday night, over 50 students gathered in Red Square on Wednesday night to hang up the poster in solidarity for a third time,” Esther Owolabi (COL ’15), a member of the BLF and a convener of the Patrick Healy Fellowship, said. “There is no camera footage of the perpetrators.”
History professor Marcia Chatelain, who started the Twitter hashtag #FergusonSyllabus and has been active in campus conversation on the issue, underlined the importance of reflecting on and learning from the issues raised by Ferguson.
“As people on the ground in Ferguson are being tear gassed and their rights not respected, the least we can do at a college campus is learn and grow together in learning about the political and social contexts that have created Ferguson,” she wrote in an email.
The week of discussion on campus follows a series of protests in the District immediately after the grand jury decision, organized without central planning and largely through social media under the hashtag #DCFerguson, aided by multiple city coalitions including Hands Up Coalition D.C. and One D.C. Among the protests was a “Boycott Georgetown” march on Saturday in which protesters marched up M Street from the Foggy Bottom Metro station.
Crystal Walker (SFS ’16), who traveled with a delegation of Georgetown students to Ferguson in October, ran into the protest on her return to campus this weekend and recognized organizers from her trip to Ferguson.
“It was great to just be there and — I haven’t been able to go to anything since then — but it was really great to see them there and follow on social media what the different coalitions and groups are doing, because it kind of shows the solidarity that what happened in Ferguson is not just a Ferguson problem. It’s an American problem,” she said.
The Georgetown protest follows previous marches outside the White House on Nov. 24 and at Mount Vernon Square on Nov. 25, both of which were attended by Georgetown students.
In addition to the Week of Action and the off-campus protests, Georgetown students and faculty have engaged in discussions on campus throughout the semester in an attempt to address race, the law and police brutality, including a vigil and panel in August. Ferrill expressed gratitude for the administration’s response to promote open dialogue.
“The faculty is doing a great job, but even the administration, [said] a few words on post-non-indictment. [University President John J. DeGioia] — he supported us at the vigil and that was really important and we want to continue the administration’s involvement in these issues because they affect the larger community here at Georgetown,” Ferrill said.
The university has not released a statement on the event, though the Law Center hosted a panel on Wednesday reflecting on the grand jury decision, featuring Chatelain and former federal professor and current law professor Paul Butler. Additionally, sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson, who drew attention for his debate with Rudy Giuliani on “Meet the Press” in advance of the grand jury decision, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times.
Center for Multicultural Equity and Access Director Charlene Brown-McKenzie noted that the role of administrators was primarily in the background, supporting the reflection of students.
“Our focus is supporting students as they react and respond on how the events in Ferguson challenges us to examine social justices issues,” Brown-McKenzie wrote in an email.
The BLF also held a silent demonstration in Red Square on Nov. 25 in protest of the jury’s decision, and the BLF co-hosted a discussion panel with the Center for Social Justice and the Program for Justice and Peace reflecting on the “Weekend of Resistance” in Ferguson, after 17 Georgetown students travelled to Ferguson for the weekend to participate in the protests in October.
Davis said that the events of the Week of Action, while similar to previous events on Ferguson, will focus more on action-based demonstrations. She did not comment about what the future of the movement would hold.
“In many ways, these events are all similar in that they have combined the efforts of both students and administrators,” Davis wrote. “These conversations appealed more to the emotional gravity of the situation and help us begin campus conversations on race. As the name implies, this week will involve more action, in addition to a time to reflect.”