Seventy March Silently From Kirkland To Cabot to Protest Confederate Flags

About 70 students marched from Kirkland House to Cabot House yesterday, culminating a week of protests against the display of two Confederate flags on campus.

The silent protest began at 2:30 p.m. outside Kirkland before winding its way through the square to the Radcliffle Quadrangle.

The event was first organized last Monday by a coalition of groups including Hillel, the Black Students Association (BSA) and Actively Working Against Racism and Ethnocentricism (AWARE)

In an interview before the march, Hillel Co-Chair Shai A. Held '94 said the organizations wanted to make a united stand against the "insensitive" display of the Confederate Flag.

"We want to make it clear that this is not a specifically Black issue. It's a problem that concerns us all," said Held.

The controversy arose when Bridget L. Kerrigan '91 hung a Confederate flag from her Kirkland window two weeks ago. Kerrigan created a similar controversy in the fall of 1989 when she hung a Confederate flag from her Peabody Terrace apartment.

Several days after Kerrigan's flag appeared, Timothy P. McCormick '91 hung a similar flag from Cabot with a sign reading "racism no."

Protesters said yesterday that although Kerrigan and McCormack have the right to hang the flags, they find the action offensive.

"I certainly support the right to put up a symbol to express a point of view, but I'd like people who put up symbols to appreciate the substance of that symbol," said Harley E. Guttman '92 just before she began her march to Cabot.

Organizers also passed out pins attached to colored ribbons that read, "I wear this pin as a symbol of my commitment to exercizing my rights responsibly and with respect for other."

"We're not telling them to take the flags down at all. We're here as a community and we feel very strongly that the messages conveyed by the flags hurts very much. Our presence here is an expression of how we feel about it," said Gregory C.T. Chen '92, a student coordinator for Students at Harvard Against Racism and Ethnocentrism.

According to Chen, yesterday's protest was silent because the group sought to direct the issue toward the community as a whole, rather than toward any one particular group.

"I'm totally outraged by this [the flag]. I believe in free speech, I believe in diversity, but the entire fabric of the community is being disrupted," said Henry C. Jacotin '94. "I'd prefer to be studying now but the statement has to be made."

The protest ended in front of Cabot House where BSA President Mecca J. Nelson '92 said the display of the flags displayed a blatant ignorance of their symbolism. Nelson added that she was disappointed that there had been only limited response from the College.

"This kind of ignorance is not new on the part of the University, it's always the students who have to initiate," Nelson said.

In addition to Nelson, Sarah T. Kuehl '92, co-president of AWARE, addressed the protesters and said that the Harvard community needed to heighten its understanding of these issues.

"We must call on professors, tutors, house masters, as well as the administration as individuals to make a statement. Our community has been disrespected and we must show that we are outraged," Kuehl said.

The march concluded with the singing of "We Shall Overcome."

Nelson said she was very happy with the outcome of the march, but she would have liked to have seen more people.

"Students have to make sacrifices, then something happens," said Nelson. "We're really anxious to see these flags come down under a policy of hate speech. That's the position of the BSA."