Students and faculty of different races united in the Quad on Wednesday to express their solidarity with the Baltimore, Maryland, protesters in a special installment of Black Out Wednesdays.

The demonstration was in response to days of riots and arrests in Baltimore following the funeral of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who died of a spinal cord injury while in police custody.

Black Out Wednesdays this year began during Black History Month to provide a safe space for people of color to celebrate the University’s diversity, said founder and mass communication sophomore Kristen White.

Participants are encouraged to wear all black in the Quad the last Wednesday of each month. A photographer provides complimentary services, and the pictures are featured on the event’s Facebook page and in the next month’s flier.

The Baltimore riots come at a time of increasing suspicion toward excessive police brutality in America, sparked by the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last August.

White said she wanted to use this month’s event to show support for Baltimore, though she said she does not agree with the violence used by many in response to suspected police brutality.

“I just need people to know that we don’t condone the riots that are going on in Baltimore,” White said. “Rioting doesn’t solve anything, but these people are angry. This is years of anger built up, and when you get pushed, you’re going to react. And this is them acting out.”

History junior Blair Elizabeth Brown encouraged bystanders to open their minds and accept black people as humans.

Brown said the protests in Baltimore are a valid response to the unfair treatment of the black community but are misrepresented in the news.

“It’s not being spoken about properly by the media because … we like to trivialize and simplify the black community at large into this monolith of anger and rage,” Brown said. “I think we need to spend less time focusing on CVS, for example, and focusing more on the fact that a man’s spine was broken, and it was not seen as problematic by a large swath of the community.”

Brown began a “no justice, no peace” chant as participants laid on their backs in a circle, which White said symbolizes those such as Michael Brown who died in recent cases of alleged police brutality.

Sociology and women’s and gender studies professor Sarah Becker joined the circle and said she is concerned with the skewed media coverage of the events in Baltimore.

Though she sees examples of racism on campus, she appreciates different groups from across the University uniting for a good cause.

“I’m really heartened by the fact that students and faculty and staff are getting together to say something about it and to raise awareness around the issue,” Becker said.

Talks about racism are uncomfortable and often times avoided, said oceanography and coastal sciences graduate student Nia Hurst.

Hurst said she can understand why people in Baltimore are acting out so violently because the black community has been mistreated for years.

She said the incidence of African Americans dying from force has become so frequent that she isn’t shocked when she hears the news.

“It saddens me because when I hear about someone getting killed, I’m no longer surprised,” Hurst said. “I’m no longer like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe that happened.’”

Hurst said the riots in Baltimore and other demonstrations by African Americans around the country are not in response to a single incident. Rather, she said, they are in response to the racist structure of society.

“This is what we’re fighting against. We’re not just fighting about this one police officer that killed this one man, this is not just about this one incident,” Hurst said. “It’s about the incidents that happen all across the country all the time. We’re not for just one person. We’re here for the entire system.”

White said she hopes Black Out Wednesdays spark a conversation about racial tensions on campus and nationwide.

“What to do to solve the problems going on, we don’t know,” White said. “But we just want to increase awareness of what’s going on, and hopefully, more minds can actually think of a solution.”