Ken Berwitz
Payton Head said the first time he was ever called the “N-word” was behind a fraternity house in Greektown when he was walking a friend home from campus at night last spring.
“I\’d had experience with racism before, like microaggressions, but that was the first time I\’d experienced in-your-face racism,” Head, now a senior and president of the Missouri Students Association, said.
He had considered leaving MU but joined MSA instead.
Then on Friday night, Head said he was walking down Hitt Street when a pickup passed him and a passenger repeatedly shouted racial slurs at him.
“Some guys in the back of a pickup just started yelling the \’N-word\’ at me,” Head said Monday.
About 100 students gatheredThursday afternoon at MU for a “Racism Lives Here” rallyin Speakers Circle. Many held signs with sayings such as “I am morethan my skin color” and “Mizzou is racist,” in an attempt to spark MU\’sadministration to action.
Walker went onto address the recent incident in which Payton Head, Missouri StudentsAssociation president, said he was harassed while on campus.
“How long didwe have to wait for the chancellor to respond?” Walker asked the crowd.
“Six days,” someone shouted back.
Walker pulledout the letter that Chancellor R. BowenLoftin had issued in response to the disclosure by Head andread parts of it aloud. Afterwards, she held it up in the air and said it didnot show that the administration was actively doing anything to help its blackstudents.
“I am tired ofthis institution condoning that we cannot walk while black on campus,” Walkersaid.
For the next 30minutes, Walker discussed her belief that the administration inadequatelyaddressed racism. She referenced the cotton balls scattered on MU\’s Black Culture Center in 2010.
“Racism liveshere,” Walker said. “Not in Ferguson. Not in Baltimore. Not in South Carolina.Here. Right here.”
Administrators andspectators watched from the second floor, as the crowd stood in the Jesse Halllobby. Butler yelled out a well-known passage from black activist Assata Shakur\’s autobiography to the crowd, and theyshouted it back in response:
“It is our duty tofight for our freedom.”
“It is our dutyto win.”
“We must loveeach other and support each other.”
“We have nothingto lose but our chains.”
Shakur was a member ofthe former Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army and wasimprisoned several times in the 1970s before escaping to Cuba.
