Coffee and Conversation, a series of weekly meetings hosted by the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground, held a reflection on the civil rights movement Friday afternoon. Students gathered to voice their thoughts on the legacy of the civil rights movement and its impact on modern activism.
The discussion was facilitated by Pedro Falci, the associate director of the HTC. The impending shift in power to the millennial generation, he said, is bringing these civil rights issues to the forefront once again. Approximately 50 students were in attendance.
Students watched an excerpt of an interview with civil rights leader and BU alumnus Martin Luther King Jr. before the conversation was opened up for a discussion about ties between economic inequality, race and gender and the effectiveness of both violence and non-violence throughout the civil rights movement.
“I think we often perceive it as ancient history and it really isn’t,” Falci said of the movement. “Now that we’re kind of going through a generational shift where millennials are starting to come into the fray a little bit more … I want to see and explore how that generation sees something like the movement that happened in the ‘60s.”
Falci said he hoped the discussion would inspire students to realize their own power.
“It’s important for us to know our history and understand how we got to where we are, demystify some mythology and to ideally understand that regular people can make a difference,” Falci said.
HTC student ambassador Hafzat Akanni, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she thought the importance of the conversation was that it fostered an environment in which students could unite to discuss ways to continue to carry out the goals of King and of the civil rights movement.
“In my eyes, conversations like this will always be relevant,” Akanni said. “They will continue to serve a purpose in our communities until we have reached a state in life where we have absolute equality and equity. I think it’s important for us to do our part now to take off where others have left off.”
Falci added that another goal of the conversation was to honor the actions and legacy of King, five days after Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“I [wanted] to allow students the chance to talk about sometimes challenging topics in a somewhat forgiving environment, and to ask questions and to make mistakes and learn from each other,” Falci said. “I think my goal for choosing the topic this week was to honor Dr. King, since we’re kind of on the heels of ‘King Day.’”
Several students said the discussion provided inspiration to continue the fight for equal rights.
Marco De Laforcade, a freshman in CAS, said he grew up in a conservative environment and faced the issue of racial colorblindness.
“I’ve been doing a lot of looking into the age of colorblindness which we are currently in,” De Laforcade said. “Racism is now no longer in the mainstream like it was before, but it is still there and the institutions of racism still exist.”
De Laforcade said this era of modern racism includes problems like mass incarceration, the war on drugs and poverty.
“[These] are problems that have to be uprooted and recognized as descendants of slavery and Jim Crow,” De Laforcade said. “We have to take the reins and find a way to empower our generation to move forward.”
Zanta Ephrem, a freshman in CAS, said the conversation highlighted the continued relevance of the civil rights movement.
“We’re still undergoing many of the same issues that people think had been ended in the civil rights movement in the ‘60s,” Ephrem said. “A lot of those issues are still prevalent now, especially with this presidency. It’s becoming less and less talked about, which is awful.”
Nini Mwicigi, a freshman in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, noted the impacts that the movement has had on her personal life and the lives of other minorities.
“As minorities, we were seen as voiceless, but now that we have a voice we are still silenced today, and we are [still] seen as minorities,” Mwicigi said. “There’s a need to talk about it because [issues of] human rights never go away, no matter what time it is.”
