As many students shift their focus to finals, most African-American student organizations on campus prepare to shine light on the recent events in Ferguson, Mo.

The organizations are scheduled to meet in 205 Carver at 7:45 p.m. on Dec. 1 following the Nov. 24 grand jury decision not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson who fatally shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9.

The purpose of the meeting is to allow students to discuss their opinions about the recent events and to create a plan to prevent situations like this from occurring in the Ames community and Iowa.

Kendra White, senior ISU track runner, and Jared Ingram, sophomore ISU track runner, both natives of the Ferguson area, plan to attend the meeting.

“We’re meeting together so we can talk about how we feel about it and how do we go from here because it’s kind of like crying over spilled milk. It’s already happened, but what do you do now?” White said. “We just want to educate each other and come up with a plan about how you get into those roles, like how do you get put on a grand jury, how do you get up there so you have position to make a difference?”

White and Ingram returned home for Thanksgiving last week following the Missouri grand jury’s decision and the Ferguson protests, some which turned violent and led to the burning of buildings and destruction of police vehicles.

Hidden beneath the violent riots is a great number of peaceful protests and protests that White said have been overlooked by the media.

“The media has not been doing a good job to me of showing all of the protests because most of the things they focus on are people rioting, people burning up buildings,” White said. “However, there was a big protest at the malls … for Black Friday, people laying in the middle of the walkways for four-and-a-half minutes to represent the four-and-a-half hours Michael Brown laid in the street. But they didn’t show that on the news. They have yet to show that that was a peaceful protest.”

White said the recent events in Ferguson have her concerned for the safety of her family. The location where her mother works received a bomb threat early last week. White said her mom has to commute farther for work each day due to her work’s temporary relocation.

White’s brother is in the Ferguson-Florissant School District and has been out of school since Nov. 24. White said it is unclear when it will be safe for him to return.

“It’s been scary because it’s so close to my home, and my family is being affected, so in turn it’s affected me,” White said. “I’m not going to sit here and lie, but I cried when I watched them say the officer wasn’t going to be indicted. I cried because I felt the pain of the mother because no one deserves to sit there and watch their child in the street and then not get justice for it.”

Ingram returned home Nov. 25. He said he wasn’t worried about his safety but more frustrated about what happened. Ingram lives in a neighborhood about three miles from where the majority of the rioting occurred and said his neighborhood has been relatively quiet.

Both Ingram and White said they never would have imagined events like the ones in Ferguson occurring so close to home. White said both she and Ingram have lived in the area for the majority of their lives and that the town was never anything like it is today.

“I feel like it’s always like that, it’s always it’ll never happen to me or this will never happen to my community, until it happens,” White said. “I couldn’t imagine anything like that happening.”

With violent riots bringing a lot of attention to the area, White hopes the peaceful protests in the area will get people to listen to their message instead of focusing only on what has been destroyed.

Back in Ames, White and Ingram hope to inform the community about the events and share knowledge about how to handle situations like the one in Ferguson. Ingram said it’s important for people to understand events like these still take place, and hopes the meeting Dec. 1 will strengthen the community at Iowa State and allow students to be pro-active.

“If anybody would ask whose side I’m on when it comes to the story, I wouldn’t be able to just say, ‘Michael Brown didn’t do anything wrong,'” Ingram said. “I couldn’t say that maybe he didn’t provoke the officer, nobody was there, nobody knew what happened. I definitely could say that [Brown] didn’t deserve to die, and regardless of what happened on that day, a mother lost her child, and there’s a man out there who couldn’t even be brought before a trial by jury to determine if he was guilty or not guilty.”