UW-Madison’s LGBT Campus Center and a campus ministry, The Crossing, held a vigil Monday on Bascom Hill to remember the massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., on the event’s three-month anniversary.
LGBTCC members and allies formed a circle at the base of Bascom Hill and listened to four speakers discuss their thoughts regarding the tragedy. They expressed the importance of strong community to cope with hard times. According to Assistant Dean of Students and Director of the LGBTCC and Gabe Javier, it was important to have this event on the three-month anniversary for all to be welcomed and experience this sense of community.
“This is the first anniversary while students are back,” Javier said. “It’s important because when this happened I was not near this Madison community and other students that call this place home may not have been here to mourn and be in this community. They might not have had the time to discuss the effects this has had on them. We wanted to offer that space as soon as we could.”
The names of the 49 individuals killed at Pulse, the majority of which identified as both LGBT and Latino, were read followed by a moment of silence. The group moved to the LGBTCC space in the Red Gym to informally continue the event, where University Health Services counselors were available. Javier said he hopes attendees took this time to work through their feelings about the event together.
“The number one thing I hope is the sense of community,” Javier said. “Regardless of whether we're celebrating, mourning or being activists, and everywhere in between that there is a community they can be a part of at UW-Madison.”
