by Sheldon Bloom
It is Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Week, and students, community members, and members of campus police, participated in a Unity Walk around campus to promote racial harmony and diversity.
The Student Government Association held the second annual Unity Walk Tuesday. It started in front of John Robert Lewis Hall, a building named after the famous Civil Rights icon. The starting point is significant as the walk is meant to promote racial harmony. Students were encouraged by SGA to attend the walk to celebrate their ethnic and cultural differences all while displaying unity as schoolmates.
“The whole point of the unity walk is to show people that all different types of cultures can come together and show their support for each other,” said SGA President Ava Carnazza, a senior global business major from Enterprise, Alabama. “It’s almost like a full circle moment for me, because when I ran my campaign, my slogan was unity, and I just think a unity walk is a great way to showcase coming together.”
Many participants walked while holding signs with slogans like “Black Lives Matter” and “Black is Beautiful.”
The walk also saw participation from a wide range of different organizations and clubs, highlighting the diversity of the event.
“We need diversity to keep everything from being bland,” said JT Balducci, a sophomore risk management insurance major from Birmingham, Alabama. “If you have 100 JTs all from Birmingham who are all sophomore RMI majors, that’s just boring.
“You need a diverse mix of people from different areas and backgrounds to keep things interesting.”
One student said the event made them realize that people often have more in common than they initially realize, and that finding common ground is an important step in understanding unity.
“I think this walk shows, above all else, that at the end of the day we are all students of Troy University first,” said Cassidy Garrard, a junior nursing major from Headland, Alabama. “Seeing so many different people come together and celebrate unity as students instead of focusing on our differences really reinforces the true meaning of the word.”