For a moment, the Main Green was silent.
At 2 p.m. today, students began lying down in front of Sayles Hall, clutching white pieces of paper to their chests. The papers each had a name, a date and an age–the name of a black American killed due to police brutality, the date of their death and their age. At its peak, over 100 students, diverse in their racial makeup, lay silently and in solidarity.
The Die-In Protest, organized by Jordan Ferguson ’17, the leader of the Black Student Union at Brown, marked the first official Brown-organized act of resistance in the wake of the grand jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson for the killing of an unarmed teenager, Mike Brown, in Ferguson, MO. Although the verdict was released a week ago, Thanksgiving break thwarted potential reactive events on Brown’s campus, although there were protests in Providence throughout last week.
The protest was silent for its entirety. Bystanders, too, spoke in hushed voices. Brown students rushing to class stopped to snap pictures (#BrownStandsWithFerguson is the hashtag being used on social media), Providence residents walking their dogs tapped students on the shoulders asking, “What’s this for?” and an ABC 6 news reporter stood on the side, recording the event. While after a few minutes, activities resumed throughout the Main Green, the area around Sayles stayed relatively muted for an hour and a half, until the last protestors rose.
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