About 30 University students gathered together for a candlelight vigil on the steps of the Rotunda last night to honor the life of Troy Davis, the Georgia convict who was executed last Wednesday after years of controversy about his innocence.
The vigil was cosponsored by the Black Student Alliance and the University chapter of the NAACP. BSA President Sarajanee Davis opened the vigil by thanking students for banding together as a community.
"Hopefully this will ignite the flame to fight social injustice everywhere," Davis said. "He was a human being, a person, one of us, with a life that will speak volumes going forward."
In 1991, the state of Georgia convicted Troy Davis for the murder of Mark MacPhail, an off-duty police officer. No DNA or fingerprint evidence linking Davis to the crime was ever found, and seven out of nine witnesses who originally testified against Davis have retracted all our part of their stories. Since his conviction, Davis amassed international support from hundreds of thousands who believed in his innocence or were opposed to the death penalty. Davis maintained his innocence up until the day of his execution.
"I think I'm here because this injustice has started a global conversation," fourth-year College student Marvin Richards said.
After Sarajanee Davis began the vigil with her opening remarks, students passed candles amongst one another, silently formed two lines and proceeded down the lawn two-by-two. Eventually the procession found its way to the steps of the Amphitheater, where Assoc. History Prof. Claudrena Harold asked students to consider how mass incarceration threatens the fabric of democracy.\n"Racialized mass imprisonment is the biggest civil rights issue of our time," Harold said.
Looking up from the bottom of the Amphitheater steps at the rows of candles, Harold asked for students to think critically about how many individuals like Davis pass unknown through the prison system and posed a final question about the future of social justice: "Where do we go from here?"
After Harold finished speaking, Sarajanee Davis opened up the conversation so that students could share their reflections and experiences from the night of Troy Davis' execution. She explained that she could not sleep the night of the execution.
"It wasn't right. It just didn't feel right," Davis said.
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