Pitt stands in solidarity with Mizzou

From hundreds of miles away, Pitt students are putting social media back in a positive light for University of Missouri students.

On Nov. 16 at 9 p.m., approximately 100 Pitt students gathered in the O’Hara Student Center Ballroom to take group and individual photos for social media to show support for marginalized students at the University of Missouri. As students clad in black posed for photos with their right fists in the air, they held signs declaring, “Pitt stands with Mizzou,” and “#SupportMizzou.” They posed without smiling, showing  their “solidarity faces.” Pitt’s Black Action Society hosted the event.

Students at the University of Missouri have been holding protests in response to racial slurs and threats on their campus since September this year. On Nov. 9, the university’s president, Tim Wolfe, resigned following mounting pressure from both the school’s football team and student body. Two days later, Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin also stepped down. Students are still receiving threats on social media.

Before taking the group photo, Jasmin Rouse, a Pitt alumna and member of University of Pittsburgh Association of Chaplaincies — a group that provides a link between universities and religious organizations that has been working to help students at University of Missouri — spoke to students about how solidarity is more than just standing in support.

“It is mourning together. It is celebrating together. It is learning together,” Rouse said. “We need to learn to listen because it’s through listening that we come out with solid plans of action.”

Rouse said she hoped that students came away with a new sense of awareness of what was happening at the University of Missouri.

According to the BAS social action co-chair Aminata Kamara, the group decided to host a talk rather than a rally so people could simultaneously express their unity and learn more about the situation in Missouri all at once.

“This is for us to come together,” Kamara, a sophomore nursing student, said. “We want to make people understand why it’s important.”

Kamara said the group will post the photos they took on their Facebook page and Instagram account with the “#SupportMissouri” hashtag.

Students posed for individual shots with signs reading “#BlackOnCampus,” “#WeAreWatching” and “#ConcernedStudent1950.”

For BAS president Gabrielle Wynn, the event was a way to remind students that they still had to work to protect themselves on Pitt’s campus.

“Even though we’re far away, this could happen here,” Wynn, a senior communications major, said. “We want to raise awareness to protect our campus and make sure we don’t get to that point.”

Wynn was especially pleased that so many diverse students came for the photo, and that faculty members Linda Williams-Moore, director of Cross-Cultural Leadership and Development, Pam Connolly, associate vice chancellor for Diversity and Inclusion, Kenyon Bonner, interim vice provost and dean of students and Summer Rothrock, assistant director of Leadership Development, were present.

“We as a black community are stronger than we think,” Wynn said. “If we take the same energy that we took to come out here, it’d be amazing what we could do for the Pitt community.”