Updated 10 p.m.: Revised to include a statement from SMU President R. Gerald Turner.
Hundreds of Southern Methodist University students and members of the Highland Park community marched through the SMU campus Saturday afternoon in protest of police brutality and inequities faced by Black people in Dallas.
People of all ages turned out for the peaceful demonstration, which was organized by the Black Lives Matter supporters at SMU. Students at the event said the experiences of Black students on campus reflect issues at the center of protests across the country.
“I’ve had friends who’ve been chased down by white supremacists in the middle of the night on the SMU campus, SMU police profiling Black people because they “fit the description” when they surely do not, they just have melanin in their skin,” SMU student Maya Carr said.
“Black faculty being underestimated … by white faculty on the regular, just because they’re Black they automatically think they’re less educated than them,” Carr continued. “… We’re kind of fed up with it.”
SMU student Tyne Dickson, who helped organize the event, said students also wanted the university to respond to the list of demands that the Association of Black Students, along with other organizations on campus, sent to the university in June.
Demands include creating an endowment that would provide scholarships to Black students, holding students and student organizations responsible for racially insensitive conduct, and requiring cultural sensitivity training for all faculty and staff.
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“SMU needs to follow those demands,” Dickson said. “That’s exactly what we’re asking for. We’re not asking for a chief diversity officer, and we’re not asking for Zoom meetings.”
SMU’s response to demands
Kim Cobb, the university’s director of media and community relations, said the campus has created the Black Unity Forum, an organization that consists of four Black student and faculty groups on campus, to address the letter’s demands. She said the university has pledged to have a response by the end of September.
“The university is working to develop a response to those recommendations and demands, and the Black Unity Forum is satisfied with the timetable,” she said.
University President R. Gerald Turner said he supported students’ right to express their concerns through the protest.
“A university is an excellent forum for the free expression of ideas and opinions, and SMU supports our students’ rights to peacefully express their hurt and frustration over racial injustice,” he said in a written statement. “Today’s walk around our campus was thoughtfully planned by the student group’s leaders and will achieve their intent to express their concerns to SMU and the broader community.”
Let’s see, one of my sorority sisters telling me on bid day that it was a good tactic for our sorority to get me for diversity. At a party and frat guys asking why I’m at SMU, and trying to convince me that I’m lying when I say I’m not here on a track scholarship #BlackAtSMU
— Grace Colbert (@g_colbs98) June 2, 2020
Rhys Zimmerman attended the demonstration with her friend, Monica Lee. The two graduated from the university in May and said they came to support current students.
Zimmerman said dialogue using the hashtag #BlackatSMU, which students have used to share their experiences of being Black on campus, made her want to attend the rally.
The #BlackatSMU hashtag was created began in 2015 but was picked up new momentum with the worldwide spread of protests following the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed Black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes.
Having a white professor for an African American Literature Class demand the white girl next to me read Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” in a “plantation dialect”. #BlackatSMU
— Dorothy Dangerous (@_Losteele) June 2, 2020
“As someone who’s white myself, I don’t understand the struggle at all, and I’m trying to educate myself on it,” she said. “The thread on #BlackatSMU, that really affected me … It was super informative, and super sad as well. At a predominantly white university, it’s really important to show support for the underrepresented here.”
March through Highland Park
After the group marched around campus, a smaller group of people, led by the Dallas activist groups In Solidarity and People Against the System, broke off to march in nearby Highland Park neighborhoods. Highland Park police followed demonstrators along the route and helped block off and direct traffic.
As the march made its way to Highland Park Village shopping center, neighbors and passersby clapped, chanted and honked their horns in support of the group.
“We marched through this area because this is the richest neighborhood in Dallas, and it’s also over 90% white, and these are the types of people that really need to hear this message,” said Austin Anderson, a member of People Against the System, who helped organize the neighborhood march. “The message is going to go through here, it’s going to go through every neighborhood, no matter if it’s Black or white.”
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