NAACP to award Concerned Student 1950

After staging a hunger strike, creating awareness of racial issues and successfully convincing University of Missouri Systems President Tim Wolfe to step down, Concerned Student 1950, a group of University of Missouri-Columbia students who fight for equality on campus, are to receive the Chairman's Award. This award is given to those who are "agents of change," exactly as these students were.

“Yeah, I think they deserved it. People were doing disrespectful things and just making awful comments, and that would make students considerably uncomfortable to be there. I think that if students feel that uncomfortable to the point that they don’t want to go to school, I think it’s a rightful campaign that they’re doing. Of course they deserved it.” -Alyssa Gibler, junior

“I don’t know if it was good or bad, but they were fighting for the beliefs that they believed in, which helped create a change. They did stand up and fight for what they believe in to get the rights they deserve. No matter what color or race, everyone deserves rights, so they really did deserve this award.” -Sam Toellner, sophomore

"I think they did deserve the award, because they took the initiative and took a stand against what was wrong, and they were successful. Even if they weren’t, they deserve credit for saying something and not just letting it fly.” Do you think this will potentially further motivate people to speak out against racism?" sophomore Henry Utley said. "I think at the very least, people will be more eager to speak out, because they now know that it is recognized and people do notice. People do see that others are taking a stand, and they’re not afraid to do it anymore."

“I feel like they were protesting for a good cause, but a lot of times when I went downtown when they were protesting, a lot of people were protesting outside of a building named after a famous person who went to Mizzou. I asked them who the person was and why they were protesting against them, and they said ‘Because it’s unfair.’ So a lot of times people were just protesting because they didn’t have any idea. They were just conforming to protesting, basically. Not only that, but I also think that the media kind of screwed up a lot of things too.” -Gabriel Kurg, senior

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