The Appalachian
September 4, 2020
State board of elections votes to keep Blue Ridge Ballroom site Page 5
Turchin Center steps go from monolith to masterpiece Page 7
Football leads protest across Boone against racial injustice Page 8
“Sheri wake up” Black at App State Collective leads march Jackie Park | Editor-in-Chief Emily Broyles | News Editor
Graphic by Efrain Arias-Medina Jr.
Nearly 250 students from all walks of campus life, faculty and police gath-ered Monday to share stories and march alongside the Black at App State Col-lective from Sanford Mall to Chancellor Sheri Everts’ office. The group gar-nered attention for demands they sent to the university this summer, and orga-nized the march against injustice to “wake the chancellor.” The collective says the university has not met the group’s demands, which focus on programming like diversified recruiting and a bias reporting system. “We are tired. So that is why we have gathered here today as a collective, to ask for change,” said Korbin Cummings, a leader in the collective. “We are asking for demands to be fully implemented that we have created, and we are asking for these demands to be implemented today. Please participate fully.” Jay Edwards, another leader in Black at App State, asked all non-Black at-tendees of the march to kneel in reflection. “Black folks, look around you,” he said. “See your support system, see your kin, see the folks that love you. White folks, reflect. Reflect on what you’re doing right now. Reflect on what you’re not doing.” Students lined up at a microphone on the mall to share their stories about being Black at App State. “I’ve been an RA for four years. I’ve had to deal with white kids saying (n-word) for four years,” said Charles Fennell, a senior. “(I have to) hop out of my bed at 3 a.m. to go talk to somebody for four years saying, ‘You can’t say that. I’m the only one on the hall who can say that because I’m the only one on the hall that’s Black.’” Fennell has lived on campus for nine semesters now, and said after all his years working to make campus a safe space for Black students, and being silenced in the process, he is proud to leave the work to the collective when he graduates in December. “I’m grateful to see this,” Fennell told the crowd. “I’ve never seen this on App State’s campus. I’ve never seen this.” Olivia Shepherd, a member of the Black Student Association executive board, said she’s wanted to go to App State since she was 4 years old. But, when Everts didn’t say Black Lives Matter in her statement on racial injustice, Shep-herd said she wanted to transfer. “It crushed my heart. It ruined my day,” she said. Shepherd said it’s disappointing that the chancellor is so enthusiastic about the football team, of which many of its players are Black, but can’t say, “Black Lives Matter.” “We should feel safe,” Shepherd said. “It is (Everts’) job to make us feel safe, regardless of race. So we need the change, and we need to see it now. We are the change.” Continued on page 3