The Simmons Palestine Liberation Organization, the Simmons University chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace, and Mass Artists for Palestine hosted a walkout in support of a free Palestine on May 1.

The walkout met on the academic quad of Simmons University at 1:00 p.m., marching to the front steps of the Main College Building (MCB) after campus police barred entry to the building. Over 40 students joined the walkout.   

As the group began to move around the academic campus, some students led call-and-response chants. Many students carried hand-made signs, some of which were passed out at the start of the protest, and donned keffiyehs.

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” protesters called out, among other chants.

In front of the MCB stairs, protestors gathered in a circle to listen to speeches from students. The first speech was given by an Emerson student who claimed to be one of the students arrested at the Emerson encampment on April 25. 

As the speaker did not disclose their name, the Voice was unable to verify whether they were arrested.

“As you all know, Palestine has been oppressed for decades,” the Emerson student said amongst shouts of “Shame!” from fellow protesters. 

Another speaker, who will remain anonymous for safety concerns, took the microphone to share that, after a protest on the Simmons Residential campus, they, along with other protesters, were recorded and doxxed across social media platforms. 

The caption of the video, which shows the student leading chants in Arabic and English, reads, “An Arab student teaches ‘Palestine will be all Arab’ to a group of fellow pupils.”

“So, already we have a purposefully false mistranslation of the Arabic chant I was leading,” the student said. 

The student explained later in a statement to the Voice that the chant is correctly translated as, “From the water to the water, Palestine is Arab.” 

“[It] only sounds bad if, for some reason, you’re assuming we aren’t including the Arab Jews, Arab Christians, and all other groups that lived in Palestine prior to the ‘48! The point is that it’s an Arab country. But Arabs are an extremely diverse group and Palestine has always been extremely diverse,” they clarified. 

The student read out comments left under one of the videos posted, such as “They will be first on the rape list,” and “Terrorist teaches fellow terrorists.” The Voice will not be linking this post as to not further harm to this student.

“Zionists, I am not concerned about your feelings,” the student told the crowd after reading the comments aloud. “I am not concerned with your lies or your purposeful mistranslation of my language. I am not concerned about the feelings of people who believe the slaughter of 40,000 Palestinians is just.” 

At the time of publication, the latest death count from the Gaza Health Ministry showed that over 34,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7. Around two-thirds of the deaths are women and children. According to NPR, the official death toll in Gaza is an incomplete count due to the level of destruction. 

After about 50 minutes, the crowd began planning to move toward the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) encampment to offer support. 

One student speaker went over recommendations for protesters entering an encampment, encouraging students not to engage with police or counter-protesters, to cover their faces, and to write the number for the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) on their bodies. They also emphasized respecting the organizers of the MIT encampment and advised students to carry $40 in cash for Massachusetts bail. 

The same speaker also emphasized that students who are not comfortable with being arrested should not feel guilt for avoiding being arrested. 

“And, of course, there’s no shame in being unarrestable. As long as you’re doing everything you can to contribute, there’s no reason to beat yourself up for that,” they said.