By Gregory Rusin
Florida A&M University (FAMU) students Xaria Miller and Yerimiah Evans held a protest outside the Florida Historic Capitol with FAMU Dream Defenders on Oct. 4 at 1:00 p.m. The protest spread awareness about recent HBCU death threats, racial profiling and immigrant rights in Tallahassee.
According to Miller, the protest was catalyzed by the death of Trey Reed, a Black student at Delta State University in Mississippi who was found hanging from a tree. Rumors of foul play spread on social media, but officials ruled the death a suicide.
“It is very important to have this event to just see a number of different faces … we are all out here in a collective effort to address different factors that we face as individuals,” Miller said to the FSView.
Facing South Monroe Street, protestors chanted phrases like “stand up, fight back,” “Black lives matter” and “down, down with deportation, up, up with liberation.” Cars driving by the protest gave a wide range of reactions, from cheering to middle fingers and aggressive honking.
Miller came up with the idea of the protest and Evans executed it. According to Miller, the pair’s long-term goals are to “address the political climate, discriminatory executive orders and threats to HBCUs.”
“Our tactics [to achieve these goals] would be to lobby against funding for detention centers and against those promoting such,” Miller said to the FSView.
They plan on hosting more demonstrations outside of the capital, lobbying against anti-DEI bills and getting a phone bank for Florida students to get in contact with state representatives and senators.
The protest was co-sponsored by the Tallahassee Immigrant Rights Alliance (TIRA) and Tallahassee Community Action Committee (TCAC). The FAMU National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and FAMU Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) also showed up to provide their support.
“This protest is just a starting point, so FAMU Dream Defenders, FAMU SDS, Tallahassee Immigrants Rights Alliance and TCAC can build ourselves,” President of TCAC Delilah Pierre said to the FSView. “A protest is one place where we can meet people, connect with people, meet new organizers … get ready to work in the future for a long-term campaign to fight these attacks.”
“I’m hoping this event can spread awareness. I know today’s a big gameday, so there’s a lot of traffic coming in, which is great. Today’s event was to really go out and show that the death threats did not go unnoticed,” Co-Lead of FAMU Dream Defenders Adriana Clanton said in relation to the “terroristic” threats faced by HBCUs in September.
The protest also advocated for immigrant rights in Tallahassee.
“We want to get the 287(g) agreement terminated,” Press Spokesperson of TIRA Aeden Bennett said to the FSView. 287(g) is a program in Florida that delegates select Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authority to local police officers.
When FSView asked for a statement from the Tallahassee Police Department supervising the protest, they declined to comment.
“This protest is just the start of a much bigger movement we are starting, definitely more towards FAMU students, but it’s all students here in Tallahassee,” Evans said to the FSView. “To show that we stand with [HBCUs], we stand with immigrants, we stand with Black lives.”
