From Howard Zinn’s chapter “The Optimism of Uncertainty” one quote stood out to me: “despite widespread head-shaking over the ‘apathy’ of successive student generations, an impressive number of students continued to act” (68). This quote reminded me of a conversation I recently had on campus with a long time administrator. In the face of the Board of Trustees failing to do the right thing and just change the names on Ryland Hall and Freeman Hall based on the substantial and conclusive evidence that those men were in fact bad dudes, this administrator was shocked by the student response. She told me that in her time at Richmond (almost 30 years) she had never seen this much involvement from the student body regarding real issues and not just attending spring concert or going to ring dance. On the day of the second protest organized by the Black Student Coalition, I had mentioned it to her in our conversation and she was shocked to hear about it. And immediately committed to going. She told me how moving it was to finally see the student body looking like they actually cared about what happens on campus. 

As the podcast discussed, the student body here is finally making a difference because the Black Student Coalition and all of their followers are convincing people to join in on the fight. I think the analogy of everyone with their little tea cups is fitting. On campus, one person, one measly student, could not have stood up to the Board of Trustees. Based on their recent actions, it is pretty obvious they don’t have a hard time ignoring hundreds of voices, so one (unless it was the perfect one) probably would not have done as much good. Also, placing these protests on the back of one student is grossly unfair and would probably become unhealthy for that individual. But no one student has to do it alone. With whatever tea still fills every individual’s tea cup, combined some of the students and faculty of this campus have been able to push for change successfully. Their work canceled the University’s Giving Day. They pushed the faculty to make major stands against their own Board of Trustees.  They forced even the most racist and bigoted board members to surrender the decision to a new group of people. It seems to me that right now our tea cups are in abundance and I hope that they only multiply.