On Friday, January 26, students from the Tri-co and Villanova gathered for the first large pro-Palestine event since after winter break. Students assembled in the late afternoon on the Haverford cricket field and, despite the foggy weather, spirits seemed high. This was the first stop on a march route that stretched from Haverford College to Bryn Mawr College. As people milled around waiting for the event to start, catching up with friends they hadn’t since the semester started, organizers passed out masks for COVID protection and small Palestinian flags that would be placed at various points along the route. At about 5 PM the march officially started with an organization explaining that the action intended to show the four colleges and the Main Line that the students wouldn’t back down, explaining “Our communities’ silence is complicity in Israel’s genocide”.
The mass of people then made the short walk across the cricket field to gather in front of President Wendy Raymond’s house. A few organizers stood near the front steps and gave speeches to the waiting crowd. Some students placed their flags in front of the president’s house and the march commenced.
The march was headed by student marshals, who, according to the Department of Justice, help to “maintain safety” by keeping “an eye out for potential hazards or disruptions, and make sure that participants and attendees follow event guidelines”. They also help to keep the march on the correct route. Legal observers were also in attendance. These are individuals who, as per the Civil Liberties Defense Center, “purposely position themselves close enough to demonstrations to be able to accurately watch and report the activities of participants and the law enforcement who interact with them”. One legal observer with Up Against the Law explained, “We’re a legal collective out of Philadelphia. We do a couple of different things. We come to protests and marches like this and do legal observing, which is making sure that everything goes according to what is legal”.
As the march made its way up College Lane towards Lancaster Avenue, the lights of police cars slowly started to appear through the fog. The organizers had been in contact with police. As per the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), marches that take place in the street and therefore require the blocking of traffic need a permit to take place legally. At the end of the lane, the march turned left onto Lancaster.
This was the first off-campus event held by pro-Palestine Bi-Co groups. One Haverford student and march organizer, who asked to remain anonymous, said, “[the Main Line] is a very luxurious area with a lot of privileged people who have the privilege to not care about oppressed people in the world and we want to stop that with this action”.
Despite the long winter break, enthusiasm for the cause did not seem to have diminished. When asked about how the break affected pro-Palestine action on campus, the same Haverford student and organizer said much of the break was spent “planning how we can remind people [of the situation in Gaza] and was mostly preparation for [the march]”.
The march continued down Lancaster Avenue before turning left onto Pennswood Road near Acme, heading towards Bryn Mawr College. Along the route, residents of the Main Line peered out their windows. One even stepped out onto his porch to yell something indistinguishable, seemingly in opposition to the marchers, but was drowned out by the chanting of the marchers. Another community member, a Shipley School parent, expressed annoyance with the blocked roads, saying, “People are free to protest, but they shouldn’t block public streets. They’re welcome to make their voices heard in a peaceful manner. [Blocking streets] makes me feel negative towards [the] protest”.
Other members of the surrounding community were drawn outside by the protest, including individuals who attend Harcum College, the junior college right around the corner from Bryn Mawr. One student, a sophomore named Robbie, said, “I don’t know how I feel about seeing the protest…I think both [Israel and Hamas] are in the wrong.”
The march concluded on the lawn outside Old Library on Bryn Mawr’s campus. Both students and professors gave closing remarks and march attendees placed the last of their flags around Bryn Mawr’s campus. Those flags stayed up for days afterward, marking the continued presence of ceasefire-oriented action on campus.
