UPDATED: Dec. 4, 2019 at 10:54 p.m.

About 20 students huddled in a home in the University Hill neighborhood on Nov. 12 and wondered what to do next.

It was the day after reports surfaced of Syracuse University’s delayed response to racist graffiti.About 100 students had met in Watson Theater to discuss how they would protest the incidents and the university’s response.

The conversation continued in a group chat of students of color, who were concerned with how the university handled another act of racism. But they needed to meet in person to discuss their protest strategy, several protesters said. So, they crammed into the house — that day, #NotAgainSU was formed.

They discussed the “bones” of the movement, one that would push many to question Chancellor Kent Syverud’s qualifications, a protester said.

It was 20 hours before the protesters began a sit-in at the Barnes Center at The Arch that would last eight days.

The message in the room was clear: SU’s recurring inaction after racist and bigoted acts occur on campus was a pattern. It was a deeply rooted problem that left many students of color feeling unsafe or uncomfortable on campus. The students wanted to form a group to attract attention to their message and keep that message consistent.

“Much of the structural and formational things were in that room, in that space,” said senior Jalen Nash, one of the movement’s organizers. Most protest organizers declined to be named for this story. They feared for their safety and for their message resting on one voice. They wanted the movement to remain faceless.

The message in the room was clear: SU’s recurring inaction after racist and bigoted acts occur on campus was a pattern. Corey Henry | Photo Editor

Over the next week, #NotAgainSU’s demonstration caught the attention of national media outlets. SU’s administration agreed to sign 16 of 19 demands from students. The group has continued to call for the resignation of Syverud and three other SU administrators.

All the while, protesters structured much of #NotAgainSU, a black student-led movement, during the protest itself, adjusting based on how administrators responded to the movement. As the Barnes Center lobby swelled with hundreds of people, protesters worked to sustain their movement.

They had to figure out their demands. They needed to gain media attention while controlling their own narrative. Most importantly, they had to stay in control once they got there.

“No one wanted to fight the administration, but we need to further the point that they’re not getting and haven’t gotten in the history of this school,” a freshman organizer said. “By them not having preventative measure toward stuff like this, it’s inherently putting students at risk and putting them in danger.

During the meeting in the home, the protesters originally planned for the sit-in to end Nov. 14 at 1 a.m. — about 14.5 hours. But that night, many decided to stay at the sit-in.

By Thursday morning, the protesters still had no confirmation in writing that administrators were working on any demands. They wanted Syverud to agree to their demands by Nov. 20, a week after the protest started, or they would call for his resignation.

“There is no definite endpoint to this,” a sophomore organizer said to the protesters 24 hours into the sit-in.

The sit-in was originally meant to last just over 14 hours. It stretched to 202 hours. Corey Henry| Photo Editor

That morning, the group created committees meant to sustain the protest indefinitely. A public relations committee would control their message as media outlets flooded in. An alumni and faculty outreach committee would lobby others in the community. A food and resources committee would help sustain them in the Barnes Center. And a demand for policy committee would revise their demands, and pressure SU administration.

Some students knew administrators. Some had worked in media. Protesters shuffled to different corners of the lobby, quietly talking among one another on how to handle different goals.

“No one is really the point person in charge every day, but there’s rotating faces that you see regularly,” said the sophomore organizer.

In the protest’s second day, a petition calling for Syverud’s resignation reached over 1,000 signatures. #NotAgainSU released its official mission. Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh released a statement calling the string of hate crimes “vile and appalling.” As the protesters continued the sit-in, hate crimes and bias incidents continued to occur on or near SU’s campus. A swastika was found etched in snow outside The 505 on Walnut on Thursday afternoon.

The movement #NotAgainSU posted a mission statement on its Instagram and Twitter pages earlier tonight pic.twitter.com/PsufQ9Q4LH

— India Miraglia (@IndyRow) November 15, 2019

The scene inside the Barnes Center, at times, was more lighthearted. Hours after the swastika was found, the Hendricks Chapel Choir visited the lobby and sang “This Little Light of Mine.” Hundreds clapped along as Oy Cappella, a Jewish a cappella group, performed an uplifting song hours after the swastika was found near campus.

Meanwhile, committees — now much larger — discussed in a side room, away from the media, how to revise demands to the chancellor. The public relations committee discussed how to streamline the group’s message.

As the discussions continued, the sit-in stretched into the weekend. Local politicians, such Walsh and State Sen. Rachel May visited the Barnes Center. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand issued statements condemning the hate crimes.

Former Vice President Joe Biden and presidential candidate Kamala Harris tweeted about the incidents. Biden, an SU alumnus, said he was “deeply disturbed” by the hate crimes, while Harris said expressed support for #NotAgainSU.

SU was in the spotlight again. #NotAgainSU — its name referencing several campus activist movements and racist incidents — defined the past five years by a lack of action from the university toward the concerns of minority students.

In 2014, THE General Body held a sit-in to protest a series of transparency issues that occurred during Syverud’s first year as chancellor. In 2018, Recognize Us formed after the Theta Tau fraternity created and circulated bigoted videos. Both groups made similar demands and gained national media attention.

Most leaders of #NotAgainSU have remained anonymous. The group ran a #HumansOfTheMovement series on its Instagram, posting blurred photos of members who shared why they joined the movement and personal experiences of racism on campus.

“It’s not about one person. It’s not about an individual incident or an individual experience,” said the sophomore organizer. “It’s about a collective understanding that the way that underrepresented communities are represented on this campus and are received on this campus isn’t the same way that white people are received on this campus.”

Most leaders of #NotAgainSU remained anonymous. Anya Wijeweera | Staff Photographer

But a week after the sit-in started, hundreds of protesters showed their faces in public at a forum held in Hendricks Chapel. Organizer Jett Cloud stood at the podium and demanded that Syverud sign all of the group’s demands, word for word.

On Nov. 20, 2015, THE General Body ended its 18-day protest at Crouse-Hinds Hall. Five years later to the day, #NotAgainSU’s occupation of the Barnes Center was intended to end, too. But it didn’t.

Syverud said he could not sign every demand verbatim. Chants of “sign or resign” echoed across campus as protesters marched to the chancellor’s house on Comstock Avenue and then back to the sit-in — where they had spent the past week.

Eventually on the eighth day of the sit-in, the group rejected the chancellor’s response to their demands. Students went home for Thanksgiving break.

But on Wednesday night, hundreds of students shuffled into the Barnes Center again, down the hallway and up the stairs. They opened up more of the center for students to sleep in, something they hadn’t done before.

They no longer fit in the lobby.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A street name was omitted from a previous version of this post for privacy reasons.

Published on December 1, 2019 at 9:57 pm

Contact Gabe: gkstern@syr.edu | @gabestern326