Within a day of junior Kaelyn Green and Black Student Union announcing they would hold a Black Lives Matter march on campus, Elon University President Leo Lambert chimed in on the issue at hand.
In an email to students and faculty, Lambert commended the work of the BSU for organizing the march and encouraged all to attend.
Students listened.
More than 300 community members attended Friday’s silent march around campus, largely viewed as a success by the organizers. Lambert and the administration played a role in the event, too, with Provost Steven House and Chaplain Jan Fuller speaking at the end.
The gravity of that — having an administration at a private university publicly support its students speaking out about a political cause — wasn’t lost among those who planned the march.
“I know that they are at the top of the list, the ones that can immediately enact change,” said junior Alonzo Cee. “To see them supporting us helps us as students.
“It helps us in terms of we feel like we have the support of the administration, supporting us in our humanity, supporting us in trying to cause change.”
Lambert, president since 1999, hasn’t been afraid to take a stance on prominent issues facing the country. Just this past spring, he wrote a letter to the editor in the Burlington Times-News denouncing House Bill 2.
In his email about the march, he acknowledged the “unsettling trauma and fear” that the deaths of Terrence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte brought to members of the Elon community. With that, he implored students to take action and be engaged.
“Elon is not a bubble isolated from the conflicts in our world,” Lambert wrote. “Instead, part of our practice as an academic community is to gather together in challenging times to listen to one another, to deeply examine our personal values and responsibilities, and to seek out solutions to the injustices in our local, national and global communities.”
Lambert was in McKinnon Hall on Friday, where hundreds gathered before the march. He did not take part in the march, though.
House did march, and was authentic and emotional in his remarks afterward. He read Bible passages and Martin Luther King Jr. quotes, speaking on behalf of senior staff while also hitting a personal note.
“I am sad, I am frustrated, I am angry and I am discouraged,” House said. “How can we do this to one another? Since I was a child I’ve been going to church every Sunday, and have thought long and hard about what the Bible tells us, about how we need to treat one another and live together. …
“In the midst of this discouragement, I find hope in a gathering such as this one.”
House and Fuller advocated for students to attend Monday’s panel discussion, sponsored by the Council on Civic Engagement.
Their words, along with Lambert’s, stuck with the students.
“It means that they’re listening,” Green said. “We’re not just yelling into empty space. They hear us and want to respond. They want us to know that they’re listening and that they want to help us.”