'Black Lives Matter'

At the start of the discussion, audience members sat on the floor and stood against the wall, filling up a HUB side room, while still more students filed in. The event was soon moved to the Mathers Theatre to accommodate the audience.

At the start of the discussion, audience members sat on the floor and stood against the wall, filling up a HUB side room, while still more students filed in. The event was soon moved to the Mathers Theatre to accommodate the audience. Photo by Carl Socolow '77.

Dickinsonians contribute to national conversation about race

by MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson

A panel discussion focusing on the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner at the hands of police officers attracted a standing-room-only crowd of approximately 150 students. Held at midday on Dec. 10, the discussion was moved from a HUB side room to Mathers Theatre to accommodate the audience.

The event, which aimed to scratch beneath the surface of a national conversation about race and institutional injustice, was led by: Crystal Moten, assistant professor of history, whose research focuses on the Civil Rights movement; Marisol LeBrón, assistant professor of American studies, an expert in police violence in Puerto Rico; and Erik Love, assistant professor of sociology, who studies civil-rights advocacy in the United States. Chauncey Maher, associate professor of philosophy, also contributed.

“This is an issue that has moved a lot of people to action at a grass-roots level,” noted Moten of the demonstrations staged at Dickinson and in communities across the nation since the death of Brown on Aug. 9. “It’s a galvanizing moment.”

The panel discussion, titled “Black Lives Matter,” was the fourth campuswide event to address the issue of American race relations within the past two weeks, as students at Dickinson and at colleges and universities across the nation respond to grand-jury decisions not to indict police officers in the deaths of Brown and Garner. Dickinson students staged a peaceful protest on Britton Plaza on Dec. 1, followed by an evening vigil on the steps of Bosler Hall and a Dec. 4 "die-in" protest during a faculty meeting.

“The question now is, ‘How can we use the Dickinson dynamic to stay involved in this moment in American history?' ” Moten noted, voicing a concern several students would echo throughout the course of the two-hour event. “We need to think about how we can engage everyone in this conversation.”

 

“It’s not going to happen overnight,” added LeBrón, “but you can’t let that discourage you as you take on the process of change.” 

Learn more

 

 

Published December 11, 2014