Washington University students hosted a protest in the Danforth University Center to denounce the recent Jason Stockley verdict, as well as police brutality toward black Americans more generally, Thursday, Sept. 21.

The demonstration was a response to the Sept. 15 acquittal of white police officer Jason Stockley in the fatal shooting of 24-year-old black man Anthony Lamar Smith, which occurred in 2011. Stockley had been charged with murder. Protesters in the DUC, and around campus, wore black as a public show of solidarity and opposition to the verdict.

Students lay down in the DUC food area last Thursday in protest of the Jason Stockley verdict the Friday before. In addition to these protests held at the University, students and St. Louis residents took to the streets, protesting in the Central West End, on the Delmar Loop and downtown beginning Sept. 15.

Freshman Allyson Hollie, who participated in the demonstration, noted that each part of the protest had a symbolic meaning, such as the “die-in,” in which students lay on the floor for six minutes to symbolize the six years between Smith’s shooting and the Stockley verdict.

“The people who are not black went in first and blocked all the counters. Then all the black people came in, laid on the floor—six minutes of silence,” Hollie said.

Though a reaction to Smith’s death, the protest tackled a larger theme of police brutality around the country, according to Hollie.

“We started saying the 157 names of black people who have been killed by police brutality and things of that sort,” Hollie said. “Then we did a bunch of chants just saying why we’re doing this—why this is important to our community and to the Wash. U. community.”

Protest leaders initiated call-and-response chants with the rest of the participants, reciting quotes from black nationalist Assata Shakur. Other chants addressed perceived issues with the campus police and the community’s silence toward racial issues. In the chants, protesters declared that they “stand united against the Washington University Police Department’s collusion with the riot police” and “stand united against political apathy of this institution.”

Freshman Destiny Jackson, who also attended the protest, likened the DUC blackout to a previous student protest.

“Around this time last year, they were doing protests like this, and I was on campus during it. But I couldn’t protest at that time, so I thought it’d be cool to do it this time and be a part of it,” Jackson said.

Jackson noted that the protest drew in people of different races on campus, which she believed ultimately benefited the demonstration.

“This wasn’t just only a black people thing,” Jackson said. “This was definitely an all people thing because if we didn’t have other races, we wouldn’t have people handing out flyers and being able to stand and protest.”

Jackson explained that diverse turnouts for protests, such as the one on Sept. 21, are necessary to enact change.

“Yes, it’s a black community problem, but if other people don’t get involved in it, the protest’s not [going to] be as big as it could be, and you won’t see any actual change,” Jackson said.

Even though the protest itself was emotionally impactful, Hollie found that the most moving moment she experienced that day happened after the protest’s conclusion.

“After everything had ended, everybody was starting to disperse and the DUC was about to open again and start serving food. We were outside, and someone started crying, and my friends and I hugged her,” Hollie said. “It’s one of those moments like—yeah, this isn’t a game. We’re protesting because this is a big problem. Lives are being taken.”