The word “encampment” has been dramatized in a thousand different ways, from a utopian egalitarian community within a cold and institutionalist university, to a terror camp being violent by sheer existence. But these perceptions were worlds away from the internal realities, and the minds of the students within the “encampment.” Now that it is over, students remember life together during this time of uncertainty, disillusionment, and death.

I sat, peacefully, in front of the closed door. There were two public safety officers, both with guns, awkwardly trying to talk and laugh, to be distracted from the absurdity of the situation. They were protecting the empty building from 25 students, young and still with enough spirit to speak for the people whose voices cannot be heard over bombs thrown on their houses, their tents, their communities. Those officers were the same ones who would destroy and rip apart our tents a week later. The difference between us and students in Palestine is that we all had a place to go back, the book to read and a warm meal made in a real kitchen. We slept without the unstoppable petrifying sound of collapse all around us, without the noise of drones as constant reminders of the pain of the war.

I sat on the floor of, as we naively named it, Resistance Hall, and spoke to those officers about my feelings. I screamed my pain and brokenness over the graves found under hospitals and starving kids walking miles to find a loaf of bread. Behind me, the other students were reading the names of innocent civilians, whole families, children and homes destroyed in this genocide. In this crime against humanity. We sat there, peacefully, and were what humans are supposed to be; what is in our nature truly. Again, each one of us doing the act of peace in our own unique way, coming from different causations, but fighting for the same cause.

That moment I was closer to myself than I ever remember, I was using everything I’ve learned and worked hard on when building myself, to speak against this terrifying injustice. Yet, most importantly I was surrounded with people even louder than me, even stronger and braver, whose causation was closer to the cause, but all equally pure.

– Rose X.

I remember it as a blur, with distinct and visceral moments. Community was a fact of life for me before the encampment, and I had surrendered my fragile independence for the strength and honesty of reliance. The encampment’s donated meals, tent set-up, shared books, and evening meetings hold no distinction in my mind from Sunday dinner with my great-grandmother, funerals, weddings, and the way I still sleep more soundly if a friend is beside me. So that part blurs. The visceral memories were those of lighting a cigarette with someone after they put up the encampment wall. The feeling of resisting exhaustion as I woke up to watch over the camp on a night shift. Playing soccer on my lunch break. Taking calls for my internship from inside a tent. The adrenaline I felt in every step I walked off campus when I received my suspension notice, and the last time I saw the encampment before I was banned and my tent was torn down. I lost my wallet, my bedding, and a sweater when they took the encampment down. The sweater belonged to a woman named Wendy, who taught me to trade independence for community, and I learned to rely on her as if she were family before her early death two years ago. She is the only reason I made it through rough times to end up at a good university. Wendy is the reason I made it through working full time during the semesters to pay for college and my suspension. One of her favorite authors, James Baldwin, said, “The world is held together, it really is held together, by the love and passion of a very few people.”

My world was held together by Wendy’s living room and the winter coats she gave away to the kids in our low-income community. It was held together by the Palestine sticker on Wendy’s laptop and the number of meals she ate with me. And I saw the world of many Arab, Muslim, and socially-oriented people held together by the encampment when the university abandoned and insulted them.

Not all visceral memories were utopian. I remember the persistent cold from when I gave Amna my blanket the first night, and the anxiety from the uncertainty of my future during suspension, and the brightness from flood lights over the tent, and the exhaustion from working full time, helping around the encampment, and staying up late to study. But the encampment was the most comfortable place in the world in those days, because it was what held my world together.

– Erin H.

Within minutes, they swarmed us and we sounded the alarm. We scrambled to stand at the entrance of Mukhayyam Sumud, with many of us torn from a peaceful slumber just seconds ago. A muffled sound played from the public safety car on the quad, and the officers spoke at us, claiming that we were not holding up our end of a deal that we never made. Then, they tore through with no warning, so we moved from protecting our entrance to protecting ourselves. I watched as masked officers ripped tents from the ground, swinging their batons around at anything they could touch. It all happened so fast.

When we moved hundreds of feet away to avoid violence, we were met with surveillance drones hovering above us. This wasn’t the first time their drones watched us, but this time, they were almost close enough for us to reach. And they blocked off the streets with university vehicles, isolating us from our community support. It all happened so fast. With the fear and the heartbreak that I felt despite some semblance of safety, I couldn’t begin to imagine the physical and emotional devastation the Palestinians lived with every day.

Sumud. Resilience. Our encampment was named after the resilience of the Palestinians. And while it was taken from us, it will always represent our commitment to resilience and our refusal to allow injustice in our community, at and outside the University of Rochester. It was at

Mukhayyam Sumud, where I learned that we can all find love within community. All of us from different places, with different identities and beliefs, kept each other safe so that we could fight for the safety of people. Mukhayyam Sumud represents the fight for liberation, in Palestine, in

Sudan, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in Rochester. It is not lost on me that the tactics used against us on this campus have been used against the unhoused living in encampments all across the United States. Mukhayyam Sumud showed us that our struggles are one. Mukhayyam Sumud showed us a different way of living, where people took care of each other because they wanted to and because they had love to share. People found their place in our community as protectors, providers, healers, and teachers, just to name a few. At Mukhayyam Sumud, we found a way to live ever better and fight for ever better.

– Anonymous

– – –

Fog over Rochester sunk slowly throughout the day

Dragged me to the park beside the school

Pulled me to the curb and get me Nic sic on lucky strikes

Alone I drove around the great lake city rainy streets

Avoiding Public Safety like a fugitive,

just trying to see the encampment again

My friend asks if they can see the hypocrisy, if not the light

I reply, too busy with the status quo, I suppose

To understand their reflection of their underclass

Just a street down, in the crescent, in the night

I wondered earlier that day

If there was ever a culture, or perhaps a world away

(The fog still high)

Where blood did not have a negative connotation

Where the first thought of blood is the force of life

From my mother and my father, in veins like roots through flesh like earth Where blood does not remind me of stains and spills

And casualties of your burden and civilization

Was Christ, your revolutionary, the last blood spilt not in vain? The last blood spilt out of veins?

– Erin H.

Acknowledgments

The University of Rochester solidarity encampment would like to officially acknowledge the life, work, and legacy of Joseph Hargrave. He was a vital part of the organization and spirit of this demonstration, and a good friend to several members. He was bold and passionate with a strong commitment to justice. This encampment would not have existed without him. He is greatly missed.