At about 4:00 p.m. Sunday afternoon, hundreds of participants of the Peace and Inclusivity Parade sang songs in Peace Park on the north end of the MU Campus.
Angela Speck is a professor of physics and astronomy and the chair of the diversity enhancement committee for MU Faculty Council. Speck originally planned the event to be for faculty only, but she decided to extend it to the entire community after all that transpired last week: the resignations of top leaders, online threats against black students, and constant national media attention and scrutiny on campus. 300 people showed up to the parade Sunday.
“I’m really happy that we’ve got all these people and we’ll be able to have people talking to each other,” Speck said. “This is how we get things going, there are so many people who are like ‘well, I care but I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how I can help’ and now we have this group of people that they can meet and talk and think about what we can do.”
The Parade was about three quarters of a mile long. It started at Peace Park, went through the quad and then the Traditions Plaza – where many of the demonstrations were held last week – and ended at the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center.
Many faculty members showed up for the parade. William Banks, a professor in the department of mathematics, says he came out to support the recent protests.
“I’m happy that the protests happened last week,” he said. “I liked what I saw, I think it’s healthy for our campus, I just wanted to show my support.”
Members of the community also participated. Representatives for local activist group Race Matters were present as well as second ward city council member Michael Trapp. Grace Vega, a member of Race Matters, says her family is what inspires her passion for the cause.
“I have a brown husband and brown children,” she said. “Though I was well aware of the systemic injustices and oppression in our country many years ago, having watching my family directly affected by it in the town, in the school where people said not in Columbia, Missouri, makes me extremely passionate about it.”
Speck says that one of the main reasons for organizing the parade was for faculty and the community to show students that they have their support.
“What we’re trying to show is that this is solidarity for all minority students,” she said. “It’s not just race, it’s all axes of marginalization that there’s a large group of people that care about this and support you and want to make campus safe for you.”