In solidarity with students across the country calling attention to incidents of racism that take place on college campuses, about 350 Lehigh students, staff, faculty and administrators participated in a student-led march on Monday afternoon.

Participants gathered at 4 p.m. at the flagpole on the University Center front lawn. The event’s organizers, Chris Collado ’18 and Freddy Coleman ’17, kicked off the march.

Coleman spoke of students at the University of Missouri, who began protesting earlier this fall after the school's student government president, who is black, said a racial slur was directed at him on campus. Students claim that University of Missouri officials have not done enough to fight systematic racism on their campus.

“Thank you for obtaining the strength and courage to march in solidarity for our peers west of the Mississippi at the University of Missouri, where there is hurt, fear and anger,” said Coleman. “The reality we are living in is that there are students who live in fear on their campuses. What sense does this make? ... This social construction, this systemic institution of racism, must come to a halt. We must break this cycle together. We must actively acknowledge and recognize that black lives matter.”

Coleman encouraged Lehigh to be proactive in its efforts.

“We need to implement changes on our campus to prevent more of these atrocities and better our campus climate so we can have global leaders who are global thinking. So we stand and march in solidarity.”

Collado, who organized the event to show support for students at the University of Missouri and raise awareness of issues of racism at Lehigh, read the poem Equality by Maya Angelou.

“I felt inadequate just sitting around,” said Collado of seeing the unrest occurring at universities across the United States.

Participants marched along Memorial Drive East, Taylor Street, East Packer Avenue and University Walk, some carrying signs reading statements such as “Black lives matter,” “We stand with Mizzou,” and “I am not a statistic.”

A wrap-up discussion followed the march, during which participants were invited to share their thoughts and experiences.

One student encouraged all members of the community, regardless of race, to participate in the conversation.

“I would love to see people who don’t look like me to be part of this conversation,” she said. “It’s okay if you don’t know, and it’s okay if this has never been your experience and you don’t understand what the slogan ‘Black lives matter’ is, but it’s also okay to just ask questions. .... That’s how we all learn.”

Coleman shared how his mother encouraged him avoid standing out, to “just join the rest of the group and look like everyone” when he came to Lehigh.

“But the past three years I’ve been at Lehigh I’ve learned that if you try to be like that, you don’t learn anything,” said Coleman. “You don’t grow. You don’t progress. You don’t move forward. And that’s the issue in our country. There’s a lot of people who are just going with the norm and they’re not growing, and whenever there’s a problem like what’s happening in Missouri, we don’t know how to react. We don’t know how to have the conversation.

“But when it comes to right now, you have the chance to learn.”

Video by Stephanie Veto

Photos by Christa Neu