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Peaceful protest expected at 3 today

Written by: Elan Waite, Editor-in-Chief

A peaceful protest is expected to take place at 3 p.m. on April 20, in an attempt to shed some positive light on the attention gathered by Friday’s protest, according to students organizing the protest.

This protest will take place at the same place and time as another protest planned to show support for the American flag.

Mia Rawls and Kalin Allen, two VSU students, said they’ve in the last few days they’ve been attempting to ensure that their real goals – to uplift the black community and to make sure black lives that have been lost are not forgotten – are understood.

The students meeting at the peaceful protest are a separate group from the individuals that were in the protest Friday. In a protest held on campus Friday in front of Odum Library, a group of protesters walked on an American flag. Michelle Manhart, a 39- year old veteran, took the flag which resulted in her detainment by VSU police.

A meeting was held on April 19, and students met with some of the people involved in the protest last Friday. VSU senior Mia Rawls was in attendance.

“They are being persecuted for what they believe,” Rawls said. “They are radicals, they are extreme, but they have the right to say what they want to say. We just wanted to let them know that somebody hears them. Although we may not necessarily agree with a lot of the stuff that they do and  we do not agree in some of the things that they do and believe, but we needed to get them to understand that we hear them at the very least.”

Allen wants to make sure people differentiate between the peaceful protesters and the protesters who walked on the American flag Friday.

“The biggest issue is drawing the line between us and them,” Kalin Allen, junior speech communications major, said. “We are on a completely different side. Our biggest obstacle is to try and overcome the fact that we could possibly be confused with them.”

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