Protesters in Boston demonstrate Sunday about the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of a white police officer, which was caught on video and triggered protests and violence around the country. Photo by Steven Senne/AP

University News

President Brown: “We Grieve for Our Country”

Letter to BU community comes in reaction to the violent racial protests in Boston and nationwide

Editor’s note: In response to the reaction he received to his first letter to the BU community, President Robert A. Brown issued a follow-up letter on Wednesday, June 3. Here is a link to his second letter.

After a weekend of violence and protests in Boston and cities around the country over the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Boston University President Robert A. Brown sent a letter Monday to the BU community, saying, “We must reject the forces in our society that are driving us apart.”

His letter, which he called “Our Challenge in a Time of Crisis,” comes at a time when not only race riots are tearing through the country, from Los Angeles to Boston, Columbus to Chicago, Atlanta to New York, but also when the global COVID-19 pandemic is killing a disproportionately higher number of blacks than those in other demographics.

“We grieve for our country and those who are affected by systemic racism, just as we grieve for those afflicted by COVID-19,” Brown wrote. “We will defeat COVID-19 using science and our collective will. We must commit the same will and energy to defeat systemic racism. We must reject the forces in our society that are driving us apart and commit ourselves to creating a just society.”

Floyd died after being pinned by the neck under the knee of a white police officer for nine minutes, an event captured on video. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was fired the following day, and arrested late last week, charged with third degree murder. 

But Floyd’s death and Chauvin’s delayed arrest triggered a violent reaction across the country, coming just three months after Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed by a father and son while jogging through a South Georgia neighborhood (the two claimed they thought he might be a suspect in a string of local burglaries) and two months after Breonna Taylor, an African American emergency room technician, was shot and killed by police in her own home in Louisville, Ky. Then, on the same weekend Floyd died, a white woman in New York’s Central Park, Amy Cooper, was captured on video calling the police and claiming Christian Cooper, a black man, was threatening her—when he was bird watching.

In an essay Monday, Kenneth Elmore (Wheelock’87), BU associate provost and dean of students, said Floyd’s death left him angry, yet determined to not sit still. “I will not lose or waste my anger, and I suggest you don’t either,” Elmore wrote. “Let’s use it to do what our rights allow and what our conscience compels.”

When BU reopened the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground at its new Comm Ave home in January, it was Elmore who stood before the crowd and welcomed them to the much larger space that Brown referenced Monday in his letter.

BU opened the new and expanded Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground in January with a grand opening (left) and Coffee and Conversation events. Photos by Jackie Ricciardi (left) and Cydney Scott

“As I write you today, I recall the two months last spring when we witnessed the uniting effect on our community of the expanded Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground, before campus life was abruptly interrupted by the virus,” Brown wrote. “Our return to our residential campus and our personal interactions with one another that are not mediated by a computer screen is essential to the critical work we must undertake to build a campus, a community, and a society that is free from systemic racism.”

The full text of Brown’s letter:

June 1, 2020

Dear Friends,

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and our efforts to restore campus operations, our nation has been rocked by acts of violence and ensuing unrest and disruption that have now occurred here in Boston. We are confronted, once again, by the grim reality of systemic racism in our country. The killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and others bring to the forefront these abhorrent elements in our society. At a time when we rely on our police more than ever, we watch painful examples of some officers breaking the public trust in the most egregious ways. These injustices are amplified by the vividly disparate impact of COVID-19 on African Americans in particular, as well as on other ethnic or minority communities.

We grieve for our country and those who are affected by systemic racism, just as we grieve for those afflicted by COVID-19. We will defeat COVID-19 using science and our collective will. We must commit the same will and energy to defeat systemic racism. We must reject the forces in our society that are driving us apart and commit ourselves to creating a just society.

In the current troubled climate, I believe our commitment to restoring our residential campus is made all the more important by the divisions in our country. We are working nonstop to restore campus operations for the fall and will shortly make more detailed announcements about this effort. This is critical because our residential community brings together students from every background to live and learn together, with our faculty, in an atmosphere that promotes mutual understanding and respect. And we are continually working to do this better for all members of the Boston University community. As I write you today, I recall the two months last spring when we witnessed the uniting effect on our community of the expanded Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground, before campus life was abruptly interrupted by the virus. Our return to our residential campus and our personal interactions with one another that are not mediated by a computer screen is essential to the critical work we must undertake to build a campus, a community, and a society that is free from systemic racism.

When we return to Commonwealth Avenue, life on campus will not look or be the same as it was last fall, but we can create a learning community that preserves Boston University as a beacon for the country and world. Such beacons are desperately needed in our country today. I look forward to welcoming you back to campus.