Mary Jeffries
Senior News Writer
In response to the recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, members of the Wooster community gathered at the downtown gazebo on Sunday, Aug. 24, as part of a rally to commemorate Michael Brown, who was shot and killed in Ferguson on Aug. 10. Singing could be heard from a block away as College of Wooster students, city residents and representatives from the Wooster/Orrville NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and regional churches gathered at 3 p.m. Students from the College took a shuttle or walked in groups downtown.
In his opening comments, Reverend Andries Coetzee of Westminster Presbyterian Church said of the vigil, “Today is much more than Ferguson, Missouri, it’s about us, Wooster, Ohio.” He went on to say the vigil was in part about encouraging safe spaces so students are able to walk down Beall Ave. without feeling threatened.
Later in the rally, Coetzee spoke about his experiences growing up in South Africa, citing the “systems of injustice” which caused the apartheid platform of the Afrikaner National Party in 1948 to become law.
“They tell us that the other, their life is not as important as ours…We must challenge the system,” he said. Wooster/Orrville NAACP President Juanita Greene spoke afterwards, reminding the crowd that the famous civil rights organization began in a time of similar segregation. At the time the NAACP was formed the white and black founding members had to meet on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls because it was illegal for them to “mix” in the United States.
Greene commented that the gathering was “for everyone,” not only for Michael Brown, and read the names of people who have been killed because of institutionalized racism and police aggression, including Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and Travis Carter. She related this violence back to a lack of voter turnout and controversial laws like Florida’s Stand Your Ground.
Coetzee next led the crowd in a prayer to end crimes of discrimination. “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream,” he said. Jestin Kusch ’15, a College of Wooster student from Ferguson, also spoke, saying it was “an amazing moment to see members of the community and College all together,” and that “although I cannot speak for my community [in Ferguson], I hope that we will remain strong and constant … after the cameras go away.” Kusch concluded with a message to the family of Michael Brown to “stay strong.”
In a departure from the speeches, Reverend Linda Morgan-Clement, chaplain and director of Interfaith Campus Ministry at the College, took the microphone next and performed a slam poem: “Only if we hear one another’s pain can we begin to hear and notice the ways the system has caused us to be blind … Don’t let it be okay.”
Dr. Charles Kammer, chair of Religious Studies at the College, asked the crowd what the cause of racism was, drawing from his own experience as the white father of four African American children to answer that stereotypes prevent us from crossing the borders of race and ethnicity. Reverend Rufus Thompson of a local Baptist church spoke mainly about the role of the religious community in aiding those who are victims of discrimination.
Elaine Strawn, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Wayne County, invited all present to look around at their neighbors and appreciate the diverse community who came to show their support. She led the crowd in repeating the words “We are standing for justice.”
Greene ended the rally with a reminder that anyone who had not registered to vote could do so at a table near the gazebo.
Caroline Trent, who works at the Gallery in the Vault, was very happy to see the rally happening across the street. “It just touched me to see the crowd so well blended,” she said. In Coetzee’s words, everyone present embarked upon the “difficult but beautiful work of fighting racism.”