Rokiyah Darbo had never planned a protest before, but after the Israel-Hamas war broke out something made her sit down and make a flyer to bring together a half dozen student organizations and pro-Palestinian groups across Atlanta.

On October 20, Darbo led a crowd of more than 1,500 supporters that rallied in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park.

“As people of color, if we don’t stand and speak up for each other no one’s going to. We live in a world that’s literally run by white supremacy. My main goal is to spread awareness because we owe that to Palestinians, I believe,” Darbo told Reckon.

Across the U.S., HBCU students like Darbo, a sophomore at Spelman College, an HBCU in Atlanta, are organizing on their campuses and in their cities in support of the Free Palestine movement and calling for a ceasefire.

Groups such as the Black Alliance for Peace, Students for Justice in Palestine, the Muslim Student Association at Kennesaw State University along with fellow students, families and children of the Atlanta community marched from the park and looped back to the CNN Center as local leaders prayed, gave speeches and sang.

Through protests, nationwide class walkouts and resource drives, HBCU students like Darbo have been making waves of activism since the conflict began on October 7, when Hamas killed 1,400 Israelis in an attack and took 238 hostages, now held in Gaza.

Students at North Carolina A&T State University, an HBCU in Greensboro, N.C., have mobilized to support Palestinians, saying their plight echoes government-backed violence against African Americans in the U.S.

“As Black people, we aren’t new to violence. We’ve experienced violence our whole lives and for generations,” said Ziora Ajeroh, a senior sociology student at North Carolina A&T, who started the campus’ first chapter of Dissenters, an anti-war youth organization.

“So when other people are experiencing violence, we feel it’s our duty to stand in solidarity with them and not because they have also stood in solidarity with us, but because it’s the right thing to do.”

While the Dissenters chapters also exist at other colleges and HBCUs, like Xavier University of Louisiana and Hampton University in Virginia, Ajeroh pulled her campus together on October 25 for the national college student walkout – calling for a ceasefire in Gaza – and for a menstrual product drive for Palestinians.

The walkout of more than 100 college campuses, included not only a call for a ceasefire, but for universities to divest from companies that sell weapons to Israel such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Raytheon.

Read more: Hate incidents rise on college campuses in wake of Israel-Hamas war

North Carolina A&T had more than 50 students gathered around the campus Reflection pool, a symbolic and historic body of water commemorating the 1969 Greensboro uprising, where a student was shot and killed on campus, as they shared history about the Israeli occupation of Palestine, Black solidarity with Palestine and the interconnected struggles of colonized people.

“We even had one of our classmates that attends here – she’s Palestinian – speak on her experiences as a member of the Palestinian diaspora and what that means to her,” Ajeroh said.

Working with Mother Being Clinic, a modern healthcare clinic for Arab women, the Dissenters chapter is also collecting menstruation products like pads, tampons and adult diapers for Palestinians.

Since October 7, the Israeli government estimates having dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza. More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed and another 28,000 injured or missing, according to tallies by the United Nations.

“It’s really unfortunate how the rest of the whole world is just watching this happen and even with everything that I’ve been able to do. I still feel so helpless,” Darbo said.

The Israeli occupation of Palestine spanning over 75 years also feels personal to Darbo because her friend lives in the West Bank, land controlled by Israel since the Six-Day War and home to nearly 3 million Palestinians and 700,000 Jewish settlers living near the Israel border.

As the conflict precedes, Darbo speaks of how she and other students across Atlanta’s HBCUs – Spelman, Morehouse College, Clark Atlanta University and Morris Brown College – are planning to organize together in the near future to fundraise, rally and plan open discussions for their student bodies about the Israel-Hamas war.

As HBCU students continue to rally for Palestinians, students have called on their institutions to respond to the war. North Carolina A&T and Spelman have yet to make public statements.

Howard University, in D.C., did respond to the war and students’ organizing efforts: “At Howard University, we stand for peace and progress, and we pray for an end to this conflict and the humanitarian and personal suffering of the Israeli and Palestinian people because violence and hatred must never be tolerated.”

Rodney Smith, a doctoral student, was among the Howard students who told the HillTop, Howard’s student newspaper, that the university’s response was lacking.

“I think the Howard University stance is bland and lacking a display of palatable, visceral rejection of this war as legitimate,” he said. “The delay [in Howard giving a statement] should have resulted in a more powerful response in word or through action. Howard demonstrates no commitment to taking an institutional stance on the injustices.”

North Carolina A&T and Spelman didn’t respond to Reckon when asked about a response on the Israel-Hamas war and their students organizing efforts for Palestine.

“I think that a lot of universities are invested in maintaining the status quo,” said Ajeroh.

With some college students facing repercussions for speaking out in support of Palestine like, Ryna Workman a New York University law student who lost their job offer, Ajeroh and others across HBCU campuses hold firm to their pro-Palestine beliefs.

“Although HBCUs are supposed to be a hub for Black people to convene – all skin folk ain’t kin folk – there are people who want to maintain structures of capitalism, colonialism and imperialism even if it is against their own self-interest because of their investments in these things,” Ajeroh told Reckon.