By Angie Bartelt
Staff Reporter
abartelt@crimson.ua.edu
Amanda Bennett, a tall African American student leader spoke passionately about the racial situation gripping the United States in the wake of Michael Brown’s killing in Ferguson, Mo.
“How can you be an agent of change in your society?” Bennett said. The event, which took place at the Ferguson Center Plaza attracted around 100 UA students and faculty.
Brown was an unarmed teenager shot by police in Ferguson, a majority black suburb of St. Louis that sports a nearly all white police force.
The peaceful protest, organized by members of of the Capstone Association for Black Journalists, the House of Éprouver, National Counsel of Negro Women, Feminism Caucus, Collegiate 100, and the Future Black Law Students. The members of these organizations worked together to organize this event because they felt that the present would be the best time to rally together students and do something rather than just follow the news story.
Bennett, a senior and an English major with a double minor in both African American studies and German helped facilitate the protest, said that although Brown has been laid to rest already, now was the right time to get people out and continue to rally for the cause.
“You don’t want to do it when people are angry,” Bennet said. “We need to have a dialogue.”
Bennett also explained that peaceful protests across the country at this time are in respect to Brown’s father, Michael Sr., who asked that others remain unified in support of the residents of Ferguson.
Valese Jones, a senior studying Telecommunication and Film was part of the leadership team last night and was also one of the key speakers. Jones said that this event was incredibly personal to her but she felt that all of campus should take it personally.
“This is not a black thing,” Jones said. “We want this to be a campus movement. We want to unify.”
Angie Bartelt is a senior reporter for Capstone News Now.
