On the 65th anniversary of Emmett Till’s death, the Ole Miss football team skipped their scheduled practice Friday morning to protest on the Square instead. The goal of the march was to raise awareness against police brutality after the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Head coach Lane Kiffin and athletic director Keith Carter were present during the march as well as what appeared to be the entire Ole Miss football team and coaching staff.
“I met with our leadership council last night and asked how they wanted to make their voices heard,” Kiffin said. “It was a good discussion, and this morning the team decided to march in unity and use their platform to send a message. I’m proud of our players coming together for justice and change. We are going to continue to work together to improve the world around us for everyone.”
Players and staff marched almost a mile in the rain from the Manning Center on campus to downtown Oxford in front of the Confederate monument on the Square. The team then gathered around the Confederate monument on the front lawn of the Lafayette County Courthouse to chant “No Justice, No Peace” as well as “Hands up, don’t shoot.”
The Oxford Police Department and the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Department monitored the peaceful protest for about an hour on the Square then they peacefully relocated the demonstration back to campus, according to tweets from OPD.
Earlier this week, defensive end Ryder Anderson spoke about the frustration in the black community and the team’s uncertainty as to whether they would engage in activism.
“We haven’t talked about it all together as a team yet, but you know obviously, we’ve talked amongst ourselves a little bit,” Anderson said in a press conference on Wednesday. “What happened was completely inexcusable, and that’s why you see everything that’s going on in the black community right now. That’s why everyone is so frustrated because that stuff has been happening is continuing to happen. It’s just something we’re going to have to continue to fight against.”
Protesting together is nothing new for the Ole Miss football team. Back in June, the team joined together by posting a video to Twitter asking Lafayette County to remove the Confederate statue from the Square. Following the video, linebacker Momo Sanogo helped put together the L-O-U-NITED’s March for Progress: Together We Can event.
Currently, in the world of college sports, teams are bringing awareness to racial injustices in the country by boycotting practices. Programs such as Mississippi State football have also taken a stand against police brutality by boycotting their practice and protesting the streets of Starkville on Thursday.
This week marks the end of week two of fall camp for Ole Miss football as they continue to prepare for the first game of the season against the Florida Gators on Sept. 26.
