CHICAGO — Activists took to New York to spread two Chicago-centric messages: Don't pay the officer who killed Rekia Boyd and save Chicago State University.
The activists carried a banner with Boyd's face and the message, "Education, not assassination" with the hashtags #SaveCSU and #DontPayDante. They brought the banner to Central Park and Trump Tower, among other places in New York, as part of a campaign from Assata's daughters to honor Boyd's memory and plant "seeds of resistance."
Those same messages have been employed at recent protests in Chicago.
Boyd, a black woman, was shot and killed by Chicago Police Officer Dante Servin in a controversial case in 2012. Boyd was unarmed, but Servin was cleared of involuntary manslaughter charges, with the judge's ruling suggesting he should have been charged with murder.
Then-Police Supt. Garry McCarthy and the Independent Police Review Authority have suggested Servin be fired, but that has not yet happened. Activists in Chicago have called for him to be deprived of his pension.
Chicago State University has struggled with funding and faces closure due to a budget stalemate in Springfield. It sent layoff notices to all of its employees in late February.
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