On Dec. 28, 27 days after the end of the 12-day Ford Hall 2015 sit-in, Student Union President Nyah Macklin ’16 sent an email to the community explaining the significance of her participation in the movement.

Macklin served as a member of the Ford Hall 2015 movement’s negotiations team. In this capacity, she worked as an advocate on behalf of the protesters in meetings with University administrators. Additionally, she served as both a leader and an organizer for students participating in the sit-in.

In the email, titled, “On Racial Justice and Ford Hall 2015,” Macklin wrote that she felt it necessary to participate in the protest due to her responsibilities as the president of the Student Union and due to her identity as a Black woman. She wrote, “It is not unknown that as a member of the Black community and one that presents as such everywhere I go, I must live with the understanding that I am not protected by my rights in this nation.”

“I must live every day knowing that because of my Blackness I am inherently assumed to be: lazy, undeserving, unfit, and dangerous, among other stereotypes, and can even be murdered because it,” she continued.

She continued, arguing that the University community has been indifferent to the injustices that Black students face on campus. “Brandeis, if you value us just as you value every other student on this campus, then show us,” she wrote.

Macklin also acknowledged in her email that some community members might not have agreed with the 13 demands issued by the Ford Hall 2015 movement, which ranged from calls for increased funding for Black student organizations and programs to more diversity in the staff and counselors for the University’s Psychological Counseling Center.

To those who may not have agreed with the demands, Macklin wrote: “I understand that. Some of you thought the timetable was too short. Some of you felt excluded, or that the changes detailed in the demands did not apply to you or your experience at this campus.” Yet, she emphasized that “uplifting the most marginalized community both on campus and in our nation uplifts our entire community.”

In her email, Macklin also supplied links to articles and readings on racism in America and included a link to a video showing Ford Hall 2015 demonstrators reacting to the arrival of faculty and staff members supporting the group on the fifth day of the protest.

Macklin stated in an email to the Justice that she had been drafting the email to the community since the middle of the sit in, and the late timing of her email is “meaningless. ... The content has applied, and will apply to our community and our nation for generations to come.”

She also explained that she wanted to be precise and do some outside research “so that I could present the community a statement that was thorough, informed, and a statement that started to address the larger issues in our community.”

She also wrote in her email to the Justice, “Even though the sit in is over, the injustice still continues. The sit in itself was focused on issues on our campus, but the meaning behind our work reverberates throughout our nation. … Ford Hall 2015 was just a vessel to fight for racial justice, it was not the end. And we all, as members of the Brandeis community must continue fighting.”

—Abby Patkin