Students gather to honor fallen, rally for change
Jesse Priest | Staff Writer
About 25 students and faculty met at the Library Mall Saturday evening for discussion and prayer for those killed in the Charleston, S.C., church shooting this week.
They gathered in the north end and campus leaders stepped forward. Brittany Burnam, UNT NAACP president, urged the community to rally behind the tragedy.
“That hit me because what if that was my grandma or one of my family members in that church,” she said. “It was just a scary thing to have happened and it really hurt me. It really hurt me.”
Alumnus Imani Waweru, who recently graduated, attended the vigil. He came prepared with a speech, calling his peers to action. Waweru, who will soon begin studying at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, said he wants to lead the movement in what several at the vigil called the modern day Civil Rights movement.
The event, #PrayForCharleston, was hosted by Cymone Singleton, president of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, the governing body of the historic African American Greek letter organizations.
Psychology student Deven Foster said more should be done to address the issue of racism. He and the attendees spoke of the news media’s role in the nation’s racial landscape, as well as police relations with the black community.
“This [vigil] shouldn’t be the only step that we take in making changes in situations like these,” he said.
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