Harvard and Tufts students hold joint demonstration against racism
Hundreds of students from Harvard and Tufts universities walked out of their classes, through their campuses and to Porter Square Wednesday afternoon as part of a joint demonstration against racism on campus.
Before joining together in Porter Square, each group of students gathered on their respective campuses. At Harvard, students came together at the Science Center Plaza for poems, songs, and spoken word performances. At Tufts, students sang along to Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright,’’ and marched through campus with signs that read “Hear my Black voice’’ and “We are the three.’’
The organizers of the Tufts event identified themselves as #thethreepercent in a statement released Tuesday night. The “Three Percent’’ name comes from a Boston Globe article that said only three percent of students at Tufts, Boston University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Northeastern University are black.
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Before they marched to Porter Square, the Tufts organizers read a list of demands for the university, including increasing the percentages of black undergraduate and faculty members to 13 percent, offering better mental health services for black students, and not discriminating against or racially profiling student activists. They also asked Tufts officials to publicly respond as to reasons why they would not comply with any of the demands.
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Robert Rush, an organizer of the event from Harvard, told The Crimson Harvard organizers had no intention of making demands.
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After the rally at Porter, The Crimson said students from both schools gathered at Harvard to put together plans for future activity.
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