COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Cayleigh Moore walked to downtown Columbia one night from the University of Missouri’s campus like many students do. She didn’t think anything of it because it was her usual routine.
Moore passed the student center on her walk. Then a truck window rolled down, and someone inside yelled the N-word out as they drove by.
She says it wasn’t the first incident.
Moore sat alongside her friend, Gabbi Gordon, one Thursday afternoon a year later at the University of Missouri Student Center on Rollins Street. They reflected on their experiences at the university as two Black women attending a predominantly white institution.
Gordon and Moore recalled a separate time when the two were walking with a friend, when a vehicle drove by and, this time, made monkey sounds at the group.
The two said they stopped and stood stunned, trying to figure out what had happened. A few days later, they talked to other students on campus who had experienced a similar situation. Gordon and Moore said they’ve heard stories of several Black students on campus being harassed and called racial slurs.
“We go to a school with so many people. You don’t know these people. You don’t know what their intentions are and what they could do,” Gordon said. “Even if they think it’s funny, which it’s clearly not, you don’t know how far they would go with their actions.”
Ten years ago, frustration with incidents like these led to protests that rocked the MU campus and made national headlines. Student activists in the fall of 2015 said they were protesting for better treatment of minorities and more representation.
Students today say racism hasn’t disappeared from the MU campus, but it’s unlikely to boil over into the kind of demonstrations that filled the Carnahan Quad in 2015.
The protests
Ten years ago, tents filled the lawn near Carnahan Quadrangle on campus, and students were calling on university leaders to implement change. They believed racial inequalities on campus had persisted for years and needed to be addressed.
Students of color said they were called racial slurs, discriminated against, and harassed both physically and verbally.
A group that called itself Concerned Student 1950 led the demands for change.
Maxwell Little was one of the original 11 members of the group, which comprised student activists on campus. He now lives in Chicago, but remembers the turning point that led to the escalation in protests on campus.
Students had already been holding demonstrations for Mike Brown and Eric Garner– two black men who were killed by police in 2014. But what pushed students over the edge was Oct. 10, 2015, the day of MU’s homecoming parade.
A group of students barricaded then-president Tim Wolfe’s vehicle, letting him know the frustrations students of color on campus had. Between the crowd antagonizing the group and claims that Wolfe had hit one of its members — Jonathan Butler — with his vehicle, things reached what Little called a breaking point.
“You have a policy that wasn’t protecting Black American students on campus as far as like free speech,” Little said. “And to be able to actually get something done as far as racial policy when we talk about inclusion and diversity and being able to sit at the table with decision makers and make changes and talking about curriculum, that wasn’t inclusive to Black American students on campus.”
The mood on campus was solemn for student activists. They had to focus not only on completing their schoolwork to receive their degree, but now they were juggling civic engagement on a demanding scale. It was frustrating, but Little said he viewed it as a necessary sacrifice.
Their next step, 10 days after MU’s homecoming, was to release a list of demands.
The group came together, demanding eight specific changes from university leadership. First, they wanted Wolfe out, along with a handwritten apology. They also demanded diversity, equity and inclusion efforts on campus, for students to be included in the curriculum and for the percentage of Black staff and faculty on campus to increase.
Wolfe didn’t agree.
On Nov. 2, 2015, Butler began a hunger strike that he pledged to continue until Wolfe either resigned or was removed. That ultimately led to tents filling the quad and nightly prayer vigils, as other students showed their support.
“Jonathan is a very calculated, smart dude. He knew in order to move the movement to the next level, he had to take an individual sacrifice, and that’s what he did,” Little said. “All of us supported him, and the student body supported him as well.”
It wasn’t until the Missouri Tigers football team showed its support, vowing not to participate in football-related activities until Wolfe was gone, that action came.
Two days later, on Nov. 9, Wolfe, along with MU Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, stepped away. That brought an end to Butler’s weekslong hunger strike.
“It was something that I couldn’t fathom because Jonathan Butler was deep into his hunger strike, we had camp city going up, we had a lot of momentum because the football team got involved,” Little said. “It was a beautiful day as you saw, and the rejoice on campus, it’s something I’ll always remember, and I’m glad it happened. It’s a shame that it actually took financial ruin for Tim Wolfe, or the board of curators, to actually do something.”
Wolfe later sent an email, listing concerns over public safety on campus as a main contributor to his choice.
Little said all protests at the time were peaceful, despite an incident on the day Wolfe resigned, when former MU professor Melissa Click was seen on video asking for “muscle” to remove a journalist. She was suspended, and later came out stating she regretted her actions.
The University of Missouri Board of Curators announced Mike Middleton as the interim president for the UM System. The board also turned over MU chancellor responsibilities from Loftin to interim Chancellor Hank Foley.
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