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Ole Miss Students Hold Vigil After Election Night Protests Last week, University of Mississippi students stood up to another divisive protest. On Election Night, after the re-election of President Barack Obama, more than 400 students gathered to protest, yell racial epithets and burn an Obama campaign sign. Chancellor Dan Jones quickly denounced the protests, saying students and faculty of the university were “ashamed” of the actions of a few of their peers. The following day, student group One Mississippi gathered about 700 students at a candlelight vigil, where they read the university’s creed to “respect the dignity of each person.” It was the same counter tactic they used when the Ku Klux Klan protested in support of the controversial chant—“the South will rise again”—sung at university football games in 2009. 

This sign was posted on a fence a few yards from where Marcelo Lucero was killed in a hate crime attack on Nov. 8, 2012 in Patchogue, NY.  Today marks the fourth anniversary of Marcelo Lucero’s hate crime killing in Patchogue, NY. Marcelo’s death unveiled a pattern of anti-immigrant attacks that had gone unnoticed for years. We documented Patchogue’s efforts to heal divisions after tragedy in Light in the Darkness, and we remember Marcelo Lucero today because immigrants are still vulnerable to violence.  A young Mayan man recently came to our office to share the story of how he was severely beaten by white supremacists on the streets of San Francisco last year. “I felt the first blow hit me and from there it didn’t stop,” he told us. “I didn’t know how to escape.”