The African American Cultural Center opened its doors to LSU students, leaders and community members to discuss the recent shooting of Alton Sterling by the Baton Rouge Police Department and make signs for an upcoming protest.
LSU President F. King Alexander, LSU’s Black Student Union and Equality Louisiana and were among those that gathered at the AACC around 3 p.m.
Alexander said he was happy to see the community get together and thought it showed “solitary” among each other.
“I’m convinced that this generation is the one that will effectively eradicate this type of bias, prejudice and racism,” Alexander said. “There’s not an area in the country that doesn’t have this problem.”
About 100-150 people, many of them ranging from ages 16-23 years old, huddled inside the AACC and created signs and posters for plans of a peaceful protest in the coming days.
Before the signage was made, East Baton Rouge Metropolitan Council member Tara Wicker spoke about changes she would like to see made in law enforcement.
Wicker pushed for more accountability for police officers and change through legislation.
“We can push for it at the local level, but it’s actually a legislative issue,” Wicker told the crowd. “I need you to contact our legislators and say that when it goes before legislation that y’all don’t deny it. Those are just a couple of the policy changes that we got to work on.”
Vice Provost for Diversity Dereck Rovaris said he thought it was “vitally important” that the youth were able to come together during this time.
Rovaris said over the past few days a few students have come by his office to express concerns about recent events.
“So people have hurts and pains that they can’t really express,” Rovaris said. “For us to come together and to discuss and proactively put some things together, it makes a big difference. Students want to get engaged, and this a great way for them to get engaged.”
Political science senior Ashton Clark also talked about the importance of the youth coming together.
“It’s huge,” Clark said. “It starts with us. In the 60’,s that generation, they wanted to pass that torch. So we got take it and we got to run with it.”
Alexander said he plans on creating forums in the fall for discussions on diversity and other topics.
“We’re going to get with Dereck to see what we can do to give students a forum,” Alexander said, “where they can share these common concerns with one another and to show that we really are in solidarity with one another.”
