BY BRIAN KEYES, STYLE EDITOR
PHOTO SLIDESHOW BY ANNA BUCKNUM
Yesterday a group of around 20 students met at Fort Reno, several with handmade signs, for a protest against police brutality in reaction to the events that occurred in Baltimore surrounding the death of Freddie Gray.
Junior Kellik Dawson organized the protest last week. Although he says it was a “sorta a random, lets just like do it” event, it quickly gained attention. Over 80 people signaled that they would attend on the Facebook page he created for the protest, and hundred others were invited to the page.
“I came out here because for a while now for a large chunk of this country’s history racial bias and prejudice has been a rampant issue in our society.” says junior Kameron Lamar, who was present at the rally. “It’s an important issue, up there with misogyny and homophobia.”
Indeed, other students drew parallels between the march and the rally at Wilson last year held in honor of gay pride and to counter-protest the Westboro Baptist Church members who were protesting Wilson.
“You look back at when we did gay pride and you see how much of a big impact it made on DC and DC as a community and you see how much press it got about it, and when Wilson did a protest against police brutality it got no press,” comments sophomore Rina Holzman. “This is just as important as gay pride, which is just someone being able to be themselves, and a black kid should be able to walk down the street and not afraid to be black.”
The marchers made their way down Wisconsin Avenue, chanting slogans like “No justice, no peace, no racist police.” They eventually stopped on a street corner in a major intersection of Friendship Heights, and remained there for the duration of the protest.
School organizations such as the Human Rights Club, the Poetry Club, and the Wilson Choir lent their support with various members attending the march. Holzman hailed from the Poetry Club, and Lena Jones from the Wilson Choir.
Dawson says that while the rally was “effective,” he plans on doing something in the future with more planning and coordination with other school groups to get a much bigger turnout.
