Ten days after the Women’s March on Madison drew 100,000 people to State Street, UW-Madison students and members of the community once again picked up their signs Tuesday and protested what some see as a byproduct of the rise of President Donald Trump.
The rally, titled “Take Back Our Campus: Resist White Supremacy” and organized by Student Coalition for Progress, attracted roughly 200 people to downtown Madison on a weeknight, who voiced their opposition to an ‘alt-right’ group on campus.
Protesters gathered at 5 p.m. at Library Mall to listen to speakers for about one hour before marching up Bascom Hill to deliver a list of demands to Chancellor Rebecca Blank and Dean Lori Berquam.
The raucous crowd chanted “no justice, no peace” “AFP, go away” and “f--- white supremacy” between speeches and while marching.
Students and community members representing a diverse array of organizations took the mic to denounce racism and white nationalism.
“We are not allowing Nazis to the table,” said speaker Kiah Price, who represented the International Socialist Organization. “My existence is not up for debate.”
The protest was a response to the formation of the Madison American Freedom Party, a group headed by Daniel Dropik, a UW-Madison student who served prison time after committing two counts of “racially motivated arson” in 2005.
Over 35 organizations, including College Democrats of UW-Madison, the Teaching Assistants' Association and the Student Labor Action Coalition, collaborated to plan the rally.
Kat Kerwin, a member of Student Coalition for Progress, said that although the Madison American Freedom Party is small, it is still important for students to mobilize against it.
“This is the new KKK, this is the new Jim Crow,” Kerwin said. “It is important to make clear that these people don’t have a place on our campus.”
Leland Pan, a UW-Madison graduate student and former Dane County supervisor, echoed Kerwin’s sentiment.
“We need to ensure that white supremacist viewpoints are shown to be not normal and shown to be not accepted by the campus community,” Pan said.
Although the protest was largely a resistance effort against Dropik and his group, its speakers and attendees also spent a great deal of time addressing the election and presidency of Donald Trump.
“White people, we are responsible for electing Trump,” said Ali Brooks, speaking on behalf of Groundwork, a group that works for racial justice in Dane County. “White people who care about white supremacy need to be 10 times louder than white supremacists on this campus.”
After the protest, some students entered the shared governance meeting where Chancellor Rebecca Blank was speaking, chanting “hey, hey, what do you say, make these fascists go away.” Blank was criticized by some students for her statement regarding the group, in which she suggested that criminal records may be considered in admissions in the future.
