US colleges protest against racism in solidarity with black students at University of Missouri

University students across the US will hold protests this week against racism on college campuses, prompted by protests over the rising number of racist incidents against black students at the University of Missouri.

Peaceful marches and walkouts have been held or are planned at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York and Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.

A crowd of more than 1,000 gathered peacefully at the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale University for a "March of Resilience," in solidarity with black students at the University of Missouri located in Columbia, Missouri.

A walkout is also planned at Ithaca College "for all the injustices students of color face on this campus and other colleges nationally," a student group called People of Color at the private university announced on its Facebook page.

Ithaca president Tom Rochon, like former University of Missouri president Timothy Wolfe, has been under fire for ignoring racially sensitive incidents on campus.  

"With the University of Missouri's president stepping down, we demand Rochon do the same," the group said on Facebook.

Students at Smith College, a women's private school, plan a similar walkout on Wednesday. Some schools, like the University of Michigan, are taking preventive steps to address racial inequality..

However, none of those protests have yet reached the intensity of demonstrations at Missouri, where hundreds of students and teachers have protested what they see as soft handling of reports of racial abuse on campus.

Shortly after, Wolfe announced he would step down as president of the university on Monday.

Students began protests at the university on September 24. Many of the protests have been led by a student organization called Concerned Student 1950, which gets its name from the year the college accepted its first African American student.

Students have pointed to several recent events on campus that underscore a hostile environment for black students. Student government president Payton Head, who is black, said in September that people in a passing pickup truck shouted racial slurs at him.

The protests come more than a year after a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, sparking widespread demonstrations across the US.

Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis, is about 116 miles (186 km) from the University of Missouri campus in Columbia.

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