EDITOR’S NOTE: Reporting on breaking news isn’t necessarily our niche here at the Delaware Call. We won’t have the coverage you’ve read in the larger media outlets regarding the horrific mass shootings in Delaware on Halloween night. We still don’t know any real details about the circumstances surrounding the incidents in Newark and Ellendale. Only one life lost seems like a perverse miracle. The ignorant racist online frenzy is almost normalized background noise in our zone of interest.
Andrew Ramsaran attended this event on October 28. Afterwards, when he messaged our editorial group chat he noted, “I don’t think there was other press there so I would like it covered somewhere even if a week later.”
So, a week later, here is some context you won’t read anywhere else. People from communities all around the state are organizing to stop this violence. Unfortunately, these efforts are rarely publicized. /rev
Newark, Del. — Over 125 students, faculty, community activists, and faith leaders marched through downtown Newark to gather at a student-organized vigil for Black victims of racial violence on the evening of October 28. University of Delaware students mourned with the family of Delaware teen Kadir Skinner as they processed his death alongside those of Mississippi infant Kohen Wiley and teen Nolan Wells.
Throughout the month of October, Black students across the United States organized “Say Their Name” protests in the pursuit of justice for victims of racial violence including Wells. The University of Delaware action was especially poignant due to the campus’ proximity to the Kadir Skinner’s killing by the Wilmington Police Department in June. UD NAACP Programming Committee Chair Lynn Sims told the Call the organizers “felt they could have an impact” due to the school’s closeness to the city.
The organizers requested attendees wear red, green, and black, supporting the Black liberation movement even though Sims said people view the University of Delaware as a “White” school. “We felt like we had to take a stand. The school encourages us to use our voices. They say we have the right to protest.”
Multiple student-held hand-painted signs, including one that read “Arrest Kadir’s Killer,” echoed the Skinner family’s calls to Wilmington Mayor John Carney and Police Chief Campos. “Was this because Kadir was Black? Would this happen to a White boy?,” asked Kadir’s mother, Rashai Skinner. “I am just asking for justice.”
Public ongoing community support was helping keep the family going in the face of despair, said Skinner’s sister Aniyah Clark. “We are not doing well as a family. My heart breaks every day,” she told the crowd in Newark through tears.
Bishop Blaine Hackett of Newark’s St. John African Methodist Church led the group in candlelit prayer for the family.
Community leaders spoke to the multiracial group of young adults outside the University’s Center for Black Culture about the importance of being engaged in the processes of change. Dr. Freeman Williams, President of the Newark NAACP, emphasized the importance of voting and engaging with government bodies such as the General Assembly. He rallied them by closing with a chant, “When we fight; what happens? We win!”
Michelle Booker, the incoming State Representative for the district in Wilmington where Skinner was killed, told the Call she agreed with Dr. Williams on the importance of engaging youth in ongoing reforms. “When they ask where the young people are at; here they are.”