Ann Arbor - Ronald Cruz has been sleeping in Ann Arbor churches since Friday.
The University of California, Berkeley education graduate student flew into Michigan to attend the Second National Conference of the New Civil Rights Movement at the University of Michigan this weekend.
“The movement is very young,” Cruz said. “It’s being led by the youth.”
Local churches donated space for the more than 300 high school and college students who attended the conference to voice their concerns over racism and affirmative action.
The conference was sponsored by the U-M chapter of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action & Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary.
Cruz said UC Berkeley students have been working to integrate the university and eliminate standardized tests such as the SAT.
He said they have received more than 9,000 signatures to ban the tests.
Agnes Aleobua, a U-M no-preference junior and BAMN organizer, said the focus was to organize nationally and plan future action.
Aleobua said racism is a problem at U-M and she hopes the conference can bring about ideas on how to stop it.
“We’ve seen a definite progression and change on campus, but there needs to be more,” she said.
Among the resolutions voted on Sunday was support for the No Cuts, No Layoffs campaign in Detroit, a program working to keep educators in the Detroit School District.
Tristan Taylor, a senior at Mackenzie High School in Detroit, said Detroit public schools are segregated and the conditions are degrading.
Taylor said the conference helped him make connections and gain support for the movement.
“You can see how motivated people are,” he said. “Separation has always been unequal - it always has and it always will.”
But not everyone agrees with BAMN’s ideas.
Marc Stemmer, vice chairman for Young Americans for Freedom, said BAMN promotes racism.
While the group did not protest the conference he said they do not agree with what BAMN promotes.
“It tries to separate people into groups rather than bring people together,” the MSU political theory and constitutional democracy sophomore said.
