On Feb. 26, SVSU’s Organization of Black Unity (OBU) group held a Black Lives Matter (BLM) rally in remembrance of Trayvon Martin.
Laila Boggan, OBU president and nursing junior, touched on what happened at the event.
“Within this event we plan to rally from C100 to the intersection of Bay Rd. and Pierce Rd. to commemorate Trayvon Martin and the creation of the BLM movement,” she said. “From there we plan to regroup in C100 where we will have a guest speaker. [Then we’ll] open up the discussion to the students where they can deliberate about how they feel about the progress we have and have not made in America.”
The event has held as part of the Black History Month events and was meant to bring unity.
“We decided to hold this event as part of our other Black History Month events because part of Umoja, or unity, is celebrating each other and the joys of us being a community,” Boggan said. “We must also be able to come together when the time calls to make things right.”
The rally was held exactly 10 years after the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin occurred.
“Upon the news that Feb. 26 makes it 10 years since Trayvon Martin was murdered, and eventually sparked the BLM movement, we knew that something had to be done to honor his life and speak out against the injustices that are still happening today,” she said.
Boggan said many people were too young to understand what was happening then but, because of lack of change, they’re still fighting the same injustice.
“To me, this event is highlighting a fact that would have gone over my head, and multiple others, if it had not been brought up,” she said. “The fact that we were [eight, nine, 10, or 11] years old when Trayvon Martin was murdered and we’re still yelling the same things shows that there is a lot of change that needs to be made.”
To her, the event was a way to bring awareness to campus.
“I feel like this event is important because the issue that we, as black people, face today are the same issues that our parents and grandparents faced when they were our age,” she said. “I feel like this event brings awareness to those on campus that racism and discrimination against black people occur to this day and needs to be talked about.”
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