On Dec. 17, 2007, the Mary Church Terrell Council for Community Empowerment organized a march on Central Michigan University to protest the university’s failure to identify or take punitive measures against a student who hung four nooses in a laboratory.
The unidentified student, who has admitted to CMU officials that he hung the nooses, told the cm-life.com newspaper that it was a Halloween prank and that he was making a statement about a school project.
Hundreds of people gathered in support of the CMU students, who were outraged that the school conducted what some perceive to be a perfunctory investigation of the student’s contemptible race baiting actions. Speakers included: Rev. Samuel Bullock of the Council of Baptist Pastors of Detroit and Vicinity: Rev. Oscar King, chairman of the board, Urban League; and Malik Shabazz of the New Black Panther Movement.
“This is the beginning of many more actions on the Isabella County prosecutor until he makes a decision to prosecute,” said Rev. Charles Williams, one of the rally’s organizers. –tiffany d. tilley and michele fling