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The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Students Organize Vigil to Honor, Mourn Tyre Nichols

Content Warning: This article discusses police brutality. Please refer to the end of the article for on- and off-campus resources.

Georgetown University students gathered at a candlelight vigil to grieve and remember the life of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man whom Memphis police officers brutally beat to death.

Dozens of Georgetown students, faculty and staff attended the Feb. 5 vigil in Red Square, organized by Kessley Janvier (CAS ’25), to celebrate Nichols’ life and mourn his death. A diverse audience of students, faculty and Campus Ministry staff held candles in silence as Janvier, Lukas Soloman (SFS ’26) and Rev. Ebony Grisom, the interim director of Protestant Christian Ministry at Georgetown, spoke.

On Jan. 20, the Memphis Police Department (MPD) fired five officers involved in Nichols’ killing, before releasing body camera and surveillance video of Nichols’ arrest Jan. 27. By Feb. 3, two further officers and three emergency medical technicians had also been fired. 

The footage prompted widespread protests across the United States, from New York to Los Angeles, as well as advocacy from members of U.S. Congress, all demanding police reform and accountability for Nichols’ death.

Campus Ministry supplied candles for the vigil, which attendees lit as Janvier described Nichols’ life. A 29-year-old family-oriented father to a 4-year-old son, who loved skateboarding and landscape photography, Nichols had his mother’s name tattooed on his arm. 

“I tell you that to say that he’s just an average person,” Janvier said at the vigil. “He’s just an average guy trying to go home, trying to go to his mother’s house, and his life was taken.” 

“I just think of how they have to explain to that boy that Dad went to work one day and didn’t come home,” Janvier said at the vigil.

Attendees observed a moment of silence following Janvier’s speech before Grisom said a prayer for compassion and justice.

“When we see our sibling hurting, may we pause and extend love. When we see our sibling struggling, may we pause to extend help. When we see our sibling grieving, may we pause to extend compassion,” Grisom said at the vigil.

After Grisom’s prayer, Soloman read Jericho Brown’s “The Tradition,” a poem about brutality, injustice and systemic racism.

Evie Steele / The Hoya | Students held a candlelight vigil in Red Square Feb. 5 to mourn the death and celebrate the life of Tyre Nichols, a Black man brutally killed by police in January.

Janvier said she chose to hold a vigil, instead of bringing the Georgetown community in a different forum, such as a rally or protest, because it allowed for students to pay their respects to Nichols’ life beyond his death.

“I feel like a lot of times when people are killed by the police, they lose their personhood. They become a line on Twitter, or a photo, and very often you lose the entire backstory of their lives,” Janvier told The Hoya. “I felt like a vigil was a good way to discuss who he was and also come together as a community to express our sorrows at not only his death, but by the manner in which he died, without necessarily centering the way in which he died.”

Soloman, who helped Janvier organize the vigil, said the event intended to provide a space for community members to come together and support each other.

“Anger and frustration weren’t the primary reactions. It was more just pain and grief and exhaustion, and we wanted something that was more appropriate for those feelings,” Soloman told The Hoya. “And we wanted to cultivate a space where those emotions could be felt and shared and expressed and processed.”

Ollie Henry (CAS ‘24), who attended the vigil, said they find community essential to process the grief of racist violence.

“It takes me back into my body with a reminder that support exists, that violence to the Black community is more than just another headline to other folks at the University,” Henry wrote to The Hoya. “Tyre died alone. We deserve to grieve together.”

Janvier said she organized the vigil alone, rather than through campus clubs, in order to separate the affirming role of cultural affinity clubs, such as the Black Student Alliance (BSA), from the burden and grief of the vigil.

“Very often, when there is an event that happens within that affinity group — so, for example, a hate crime against Asian people, or a Black person gets shot by police, or somebody experiences any kind of racism — it falls on that affinity club to organize for that and to advocate for that, and I feel that is wrong,” Janvier said. 

“The role of the BSA is not to be protesting every week. The role of the BSA is to provide a safe space for Black students,” Janvier added. “I didn’t want the BSA to be putting on a vigil because they should not have to put on a vigil.”

Both Janvier and Soloman were surprised by the vigil’s immense turnout. 

“What we ended up seeing were people from many different identities and backgrounds, racially, religiously, showing up both to grieve and also to support,” Soloman said.

Janvier said it is important to continue to demonstrate kindness and compassion in the wake of Nichols’ death.

“We ought to extend more love to each other,” Janvier said at the vigil. “Tyre’s mom, she said that he had a beautiful and loving soul. And I think if there’s one thing we can take away from his life, and unfortunately his death, is to extend more love to each other on this campus and off this campus and every day.”

Resources: On-campus resources include Health Education Services (202-687-8949), Counseling and Psychiatric Services (202-687-6985) and the Center for Multicultural Equity and Access (202-687-4054); additional off-campus resources include Crisis Text Line (text 741741) and the District of Columbia ACLU (202-457-0800)

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