Marching, running — and sitting

January 19, 2023

James Weldon Johnson's Black National anthem exhorted us to march.

Dr. Walter Earl Fluker inspired us to keep running despite dangerous times ahead.

So why was a bench, of all things, the centerpiece of Tuesday's inaugural Martin Luther King Jr. Spirit Celebration?

And why were Dr. Adam Clark of our Theology department and Fr. Eric Sundrup (CAS '03) blessing it in Bellarmine Chapel?

Because it was the Black Lives Lost Memorial Bench, the creation of Adoria Maxberry (CAS '09).

Embedded in its exuberant colors are the carefully inscribed names of Black victims of racial violence.

The bench invites all of us to reflect and to act, to remember and to protest, to lament and to hope, to be silent and to shout, to learn and to teach — to sit, to march, and to run.

Go find the bench in Bellarmine Chapel this month, and then again as it travels around our campus. Take time to trace the names of Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Timothy Thomas, and too many others.

The arrival of the Black Lives Lost Bench marks the start of the "Year of the King" at Xavier. Where we go from here depends on you, and on all of us together.

David Mengel