Senior accounting major Walter Sanders was so moved after attending the Civil Rights Bus Tour in January, he said he was inspired to organize a civil rights march on campus.
“When you come into the knowledge of knowing what happened and why people do what they did, you should let everybody else know so we’re all not ignorant,” Sanders said.
Melissa Gruver, community engagement coordinator for TCU’s Center for Community Involvement & Service-Learning and an adviser for the march, said students were encouraged to share what they learned on the tour.
“It’s great to see these students organizing to create an event that’s going to teach people in the TCU and Fort Worth community about the freedom song, about the movement and really help people to have a quality experience that might encourage them to engage in social change,” she said.
Sanders said the project began as a “freedom song concert.” The plan evolved into a march with the hope that students would gain more from the experience.
During the civil rights era, marchers stopped using picket signs because police officers would take the signs and beat people, he said. Protesters started wearing signs tied around their necks with string or yarn.
“I don’t think a lot of people realize that,” Sanders said. “It’s just little bitty things here and there that can make what somebody says a truth or a lie. We want to clear up a lot of false teaching.”
The event would recreate what happened before and during civil rights marches, Sanders said. Since many cultures participated in civil rights marches, the march should be seen as a multiracial event.
It would start at Robert Carr Chapel with scripture, prayer and freedom songs, he said. Participants would then march down Bellaire Drive, ending at the Brown-Lupton University Union for lunch.
During lunch, participants would be able to talk to civil rights movement participants and advocates about civil rights, he said.
Senior computer science major Corey Bennett was one of the students who helped organize the event.
Bennett said the civil rights movement was an important part of TCU history and this event would help further the movement.
“There’s a lot of lack of diversity, a lot of lack of information as far as what the civil rights movement was, what it entailed and about really what it means,” he said. “I think this might shed a little bit of light on the situation.”
This event is much needed because people should be reminded that the civil rights movement included more than just the big names, Sanders said.
“It’s just getting that information out there and helping people understand the civil rights movement was more than Martin Luther King,” he said. “It was more than Rosa Parks. They wouldn’t be able to do it without everybody else being involved.”
The march will occur Sunday, March 4. It is open to all TCU students and the Fort Worth community.
