In yesterday's chilly weather, senior Alwin Jones spoke at the Black Solidarity Day rally, comparing the weather to the coldness of life and emphasizing how much warmer it would be if everyone stood closer. At first, people bore the cold on their own, but gradually gathered into larger groups to share in each others' warmth.
The audience was a metaphor for the day's message of unity, with over 60 students and faculty gathered on the campus center patio for Tufts' fifth annual Black Solidarity Day rally.
The rally, sponsored by the Pan-African Alliance (PAA), featured speakers and poets who offered updates and observations on the black community at Tufts.
PAA president Carl Jackson said the rally was successful. "We had a lot of good speakers and even some surprise speakers," he said.
At the rally, Jackson spoke about the need to attract attendees outside of the black community to similar events to avoid "preaching to the choir."
"It's important to get other people to come to our events," he said.
One key speaker, visiting lecturer George Davis, who is teaching a class in the Experimental College on the 1960s civil rights movement, spoke about the history of the Tufts' black community. "We need to open up and speak to each other and stop qualifying one another," he said.
Davis then made an important distinction about his identity. As Irish Americans refer to themselves as "Irish" and Italian Americans as "Italians," he said he was "African," rather than African American.
A PAA representative reviewed some of the group's initiatives for the year, such as retaining black faculty, building relationships with other student groups such as the African Social Organization and Hillel, and encouraging the reinstatement of the Tufts-in-Ghana program.
PAA has also worked with the Student Labor Action Movement to petition for custodial rights and aided in the search for a new director of the Office of Equal Opportunity.
The day's events also included a discussion entitled "Black Activism in Urban America" and later in the week, the PAA will screen a film.
Black Solidarity Day began in 1969. Historically, blacks celebrating the day have not gone to work or school to demonstrate the black community's strength and political influence. The idea was inspired by Douglas Turner Ward's play Day of Absence in which blacks disappear for one day.
