FAIR School Crystal Students Protest ICE Actions With Song, ‘Chain of Love’
Students at FAIR School Crystal made their voices heard on Monday.
“They see things that are happening in the news that we believe aren’t correct,” said FAIR School Crystal Principal Zoraba Ross. “People getting shot and killed, and so our kids want to have a voice. And so they want to learn how to deal with that and they want to be able to voice their opinions.”
To protest the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the students created a paper “chain of love” and draped it off the school stairwell.
The protest also came with shared song.
Students sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which is also commonly known as the Black national anthem.
Likewise, students sang the school song, which was written by their music teacher.
Students hung a paper chain, called ‘A Chain of Love Against ICE,’ as a form of protest.
According to Ross, students at FAIR School Crystal are trying to make the best of their last few months at the school.
The district is terminating the current school programming at FAIR School Crystal at the end of this school year.
“Our school, this is going to be the last year for our programming here in this building here,” Ross said. “And so our kids, we want to make sure that everything we do is done in a positive light. We want our kids to leave this space feeling really good about who they are as they transition to other schools next year.”
Students had originally been interested in protesting through a walkout. However, when the student council approached Ross, he wouldn’t give them permission to leave the school.
“Could we come up with a different idea where we could stay in the building, make it more positive – not that walking out is not positive, but what could we do a little bit differently by using our creative thought process?” Ross said. “And so out of that, our kids went back, they started to communicate with one another and then out of that came the chain of love against ICE. And so this is what happened. They approached me about three or four days later. They say, ‘Principal Ross, hey, this is our idea now that we think would be safe,’ and we agreed to that.”
See also: Hundreds of Champlin Park Students Protest ICE in Walkout
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