People who came to support the movement at Grand River Avenue and Abbot Road held up signs that said “Black Lives Matter,” “Stop Police Violence” and “White Silence = Violence” to passing cars. Many of the cars that passed honked in recognition of the movement.

“I realize because I am white I have a lot of privilege ... and I don’t feel that it is fair that people live in a society where people are targeted based on their skin color," Residential College in the Arts and Humanities freshman Maggie Jelcin said.

 “Rain won’t stop us,” the group chanted as a downpour began during the event.

“I personally got involved because I wanted a venue to say, ‘even though I am a white person, violence against black and brown people impacts all of us,’” Donna Rich Kaplowitz, one of the organizers of the event and an assistant professor in Residential College in the Arts and Humanities, said

The vigil was put into action because recent acts of violence against people of color. Some important events that inspired Kaplowitz to organize the peace vigil include the two black men killed by police this September — Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Okla. and Keith Scott in Charlotte, N.C.

Another reason Kaplowitz said the event was organized was a neighborhood in Grand Ledge, Mich. that was spray painted with racial slurs. J Robin Langley was one of the residents in the neighborhood, and she spoke at the event to bring people to action.

“We have made far too much progress for these crimes to be happening,” Langley said.

She then called upon people to contact the Eaton County Sheriff and consider what happened a hate crime.

Other speakers, such as Rabbi Michael Zimmerman, Kath Edsall and Erin Graham from the East Lansing Board of Education and Kendra Pyle Kanaboshi, one of the organizers of the event and an academic advisor in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Plant Biology departments in the College of Natural Science at MSU, all gave speeches to show their support to the black community.

"The time is now to stop police violence," Kanaboshi said. "The time is now to demand police accountability. The time is now to stop racial profiling. The time is now to have police officers stop policing themselves."

The vigil ended by reading off the names of those killed by police and everyone singing “We Shall Overcome” by Joan Baez.