Issue date: 10/30/07 Section: Campus

Media Credit: Dan Fletcher Members of the African American Freshman Advisory Board, led by Communication freshman Marcus Shepard (left), handed out flyers at The Rock on Monday to raise awareness for Megan Williams, a West Virginia woman who said she was abducted and raped in mid-September.

Students read poetry and handed out fliers at The Rock on Monday in an effort to get the word out about Megan Williams, a 20-year-old black woman, who said she was kidnapped, raped and tortured by six white individuals for at least a week last month in West Virginia.

The African American Freshman Advisory Board put on the event, which they called "Do You Know Megan Williams?" They also painted The Rock the day before.

Williams was kept captive in a shed, tortured, beaten, forced to eat feces and raped, according to authorities. The suspects in the case could spend the rest of their lives in prison if convicted of rape and kidnapping charges.

The students were concerned especially with the lack of media coverage for her case, said Communication freshman Camille Edwards, the group's historian.

"Megan Williams is an African American woman who was abducted in West Virginia by six Caucasians," Edwards said. "She's getting no publicity for it, and the resort was Facebook. That was the only way (the issue) was spread, and that's sad."

Despite any Facebook efforts to raise awareness, many students on campus remain unaware of the story.

Because of a lack of student awareness, members of the group pegged the Williams tragedy as a cause to rally around, said Communication freshman and the board's President Marcus Shepard, who organized the event.

The rally was interrupted when a sorority played rap music and sold Halloween candygrams in front of The Rock at the same time.

"We have an obstacle with the candygrams," Shepard said. "(But) it's going all right."

Shepard said he also was disappointed when some students passing by declined to take the fliers the group was passing out.

"Some people are taking fliers, others aren't," he said. "It's kind of sad that in today's society somebody won't take two seconds to read a few bullet points on a flier and learn about the world around them."

Communication freshman Asantewaa Boakye, a member of the group, wrote a poem and read it aloud at the rally to express her anger at the news media, she said.

"We're trying to express our dislike of the media putting a hierarchy of what's important in the media," Boakye said. "(Hopefully we're) getting people to pay attention and see what's going on in the world, instead of just rushing to class."

Shepard said the group plans to sponsor a discussion on the Williams case sometime next month.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report..

Reach Brian Rosenthal at b-rosenthal@northwestern.edu.

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