With duct tape over their mouths and paper chains around their wrists, eight Black students, with the help of 13 others, protested racial injustice in four locations on campus Monday.
Nine students encircled the restrained eight in the Brew, outside the CSL, in the Lower Quad and in Old Main, heckling bystanders with sayings like “this isn’t a race issue” and “these are just thugs” as part of the performance.
Vicky Gillon, head planner of the protest, kept duct tape off her mouth so that she could participate in the performance. Gillon shouted concerning the victims of recent acts of racial injustice. She would also occasionally shout “Black Lives Matter,” to which the performers responded with “All Lives Matter.”
“It did feel good to actually say those things that have been on my heart instead of making a Facebook status about it,” said Gillon. “I wanted people to actually know and hear the anger in my voice and the anger in my face and just feel it.”
While the protestors were in the CSL, sophomore Karen Jorgenson approached the protestors and ripped through the chains and was pulled aside by sophomore Keila Saucedo.
“I think it was incredibly disrespectful,” said Saucedo. “I don’t think people realized we spent our last couple of dollars on this protest. We bought this duct tape. We bought these posters. We bought frigs to make. This is so important to us, and I don’t think she understands, and I don’t think a lot of people understand how much it means to us.”
Jorgenson could not be immediately reached for comment.
Junior LaDonna Miller said the protest was meant to make students feel uncomfortable, to demonstrate how Black individuals feel on campus every day.
“It was a bit disturbing when some people walked past not having any facial expressions or to professors who slammed their doors or to people who came down to tear down the chains,” said Miller. “It was an eye opener. I would think if we were facing racism, that we would come and talk about it, but that’s not what it’s like here at Augustana.”
Junior Eleanor Nolan, who was one of the outside circle members, said it was difficult to say ignorant and racist comments that people often use.
“It was also inspiring to see the inner circle stand together and go through that,” said Nolan. “That must have been so difficult having to deal with all these terrible things being said to them, and the fact that they could pull through and finish this is really inspiring.”

At the protest, Saucedo, junior Analysia Gomez, first-year Rachael Meadors and junior Kayla Wilson passed out the group’s proposal for the campus, which included making the campus more aware of racism, prioritizing students of color, stopping the use of “multiculturalism” as a marketing technique and reevaluating public safety having guns on campus. The full proposal can be found here.
“The proposal was made to have clear goals in mind for doing this protest and to have clear demands,” said Gillon. “We didn’t want to be doing it just for the sake of doing a protest.”
Starting with an email titled “Revolution” created by Gillon, Nolan and juniors Ginny Aumann and Katie Knauft on Dec. 2 sent to 16 students, Gillon, Nolan and Aumann housed 24 other members of the Augustana community in their TLA, Lindgren B, on Dec. 3.
There, the group decided that instead of using metal chains to restrain Gillon and others to a tree, they would use paper chains as a symbol, said junior Carolyn Muller, who came up with the idea.
“You can do so much more with a paper chain then a metal chain, and it still has the same symbolic effect,” said Muller at the Dec. 3 meeting. “The ability to write things on the chains, the fact that so much of the racism and microaggressions, white privilege that gets perpetuated day to day can be in a very small format. You could fit the link to a tweet on a paper chain.”
Gillon said on Dec. 3 that the forum on Ferguson was a “great opening conversation” to raise awareness for police brutality, but Gillon thought the situation called for more radical action.
“I’m sacrificing my dignity in a way by me knowing that there will be people attacking my personal character and character traits out of ignorance and confusion, and I am prepared for that, and I know a lot of the other demonstrators are too,” said Gillon on Dec. 3.
After the protest, Gillon said that before the protest she didn’t think there would be so many students willing to make an impact even though they aren’t Black.
“That’s the key, because I’ve always felt like us black students were always the ones that had to talk about this and always were the ones who had to stand up,” said Gillon.
She said she hopes students will not be afraid to speak up.
“Hopefully they won’t,” said Gillon. “I know that we are all smart students, and we all can see injustice when it happens. So hopefully students who saw this will be able to speak up, not just for Black lives but all oppressed people all around the world, doing more protests and making people understand.”