The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Blk Pwr Coalition hosted a candlelight vigil on Library Mall Thursday night in remembrance of 13 Black lives, including Corey Ruiz, who Madison police shot in a fatal encounter on Williamson Street this summer.
Around 60 students gathered to light candles, recite poems and anecdotes and grieve with the community. The vigil’s main purpose was to let families of the victims know they will not be forgotten, Blk Pwr Coalition’s chief operating officer Azuri Lawson said.
“This vigil is our refusal to let our brothers and sisters become nameless statistics. We gather to say their names, to honor their spirits and to affirm that their lives matter deeply,” Lawson said to the crowd. “Remembering is an act of love, and mourning together is an act of resistance.”
The vigil invited attendees to gather in a circle around candles shaped into a heart. The Blk Pwr Coalition provided candles for anyone who wanted to hold one during the vigil.
The vigil started with a moment of silence, attendees solemnly looking down or closing their eyes in honor of 13 Black people whose fatalities involved officers or suspicions of racial motivation — Corey Ruiz, Nolan Wells, Richard Lee Johnson, Kyle Bassinga, Juliana Nzita, To’Nea Nicole Miller, Justice James, Jerard Jackson, Tasia Fortune, Javion Magee, Dennoriss Richardson, Earl Smith and Trayvon Reed.
Among the 13 names Lawson recited was Corey Ruiz, a 38-year-old Black man who was fatally shot by a Madison police officer this past summer. His death sparked protests after videos circulated online and calls for the Madison Police Department to provide transparency about the fatality after videos circulated online.
Lawson also called the moment of silence in honor of Black deaths the coalition couldn’t name.
“To every brother and sister whose names were never recorded, whose stories were never told or whose disappearances were never met with institutional silence, we hold you here tonight,” Lawson said.
Alongside Ruiz’s name was Richard Lee Johnson, a 32-year-old Black man who died in Madison in 2024, one day after being arrested. He was originally said to have died from “complications from cocaine toxicity,” but Madison leaders called for a review after a forensic pathologist disputed the original cause of death and pointed toward a “restraint-related cardiac arrest.”
Lawson said she was impressed with the vigil’s turnout and talked about what it meant to see everyone come together.
“We won't stay silent,” she said. “I think it shows that we are still a community on campus and that people still care.”
Students from UW-Madison’s chapter of Leaders Igniting Transformation (LIT), a nonprofit led by youth of color, and Madison Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) spoke at the vigil.
SDS member Bradley Keenan spoke to the circle about the connection between Corey Ruiz’s death and SDS’s rally for a sanctuary campus on Sept. 16. Keenan referenced Blk Pwr Coalition member Evan Epps’s words from the rally in his own speech.
“These systems that killed Corey Ruiz and Black bodies around the country are the same ones that detain and deport thousands of immigrants and Mexican-Americans in this country,” Keenan said.
Keenan spoke about UW-Madison’s history and ongoing fight for resistance, comparing the Black Student Strike in 1969, which prompted the African American Studies Program, to more recent rallies and protests.
Another member of SDS who attended, Lizbeth De Jesus, told The Daily Cardinal she grew up on the South Side of Chicago, witnessing the suffering of Brown and Black people in her community. She said hearing about Corey Ruiz was surprising to her knowledge of Madison being a “more liberal” city.
“It sucks to hear that no matter what state you are gonna be in, the police are going to be racist,” De Jesus said.
Elijah Makwinja, the Blk Pwr Coalition’s Community Outreach and Resources Cipher Lead, told the Cardinal that campus this past summer was quieter than usual due to Corey Ruiz’s death.
“You couldn’t believe it because it was on a street that so many people would normally be at,” Makwinja said. “It felt like something we would see on the news all the time happened right in front of our face, and we were in awe that could even happen here in Madison.”
He said the proximity of Ruiz’s death contributed to its surrealness, adding Blk Pwr Coalition held the vigil to make his and other names a priority again.
“We’ve had issues in Madison, but this was one that was recorded — it was in our face,” Makwinja said. “When that first happened, I thought it was in a different state. As soon as people started saying what street [he was shot on], I was like, ‘well, I was just there maybe a week ago.’”
