A little past 4 a.m., the campus is silent. Five students stand huddled together, barely visible through a thick fog, wrapped in jackets and scarves to withstand the morning chill.
They talk quietly on the steps of Upper Sproul Plaza, eating reserves of bread and cookies as the minutes tick by. Protest signs — laid carefully out on the plaza steps — outnumber people.
Alone on a campus that will soon be bustling before morning classes, they wait for sunrise.
By 1 p.m., they will be done with a 27-hour standing campaign — a “Stand for Freedom” — organized by the International Justice Mission Berkeley, a campus club that advocates ending human trafficking worldwide.
The club — a chapter of the human rights agency of the same name — stood in solidarity with other university groups around the nation that took part in a larger campaign to raise awareness of the 27 million people enslaved in the world today. The International Justice Mission urged groups nationwide to do standing campaigns in their communities.
The campus club has only 20 active members, according to club President Wesley Cheung. Despite concern that the group would lack the manpower to meet the 27-hour challenge, members lasted all throughout the night, keeping volunteers standing on Sproul from Wednesday morning to Thursday afternoon.
“For Stand for Freedom, we were really worried we wouldn’t have people standing … I mean, it’s 27 hours,” said senior Leanne Chan, who helped organize the event. “(But) it’s 5 a.m., and we’re still here. And there are more coming.”
Around 15 club members stood in shifts for the 27-hour period, standing in groups of three or more while other participants took breaks to study, nap or head to class.
Students used different motivations to remain standing. Senior James Dabalos stood for the work the International Justice Mission does for people in the Philippines, his country of origin.
“I have back problems,” Dabalos said. “Standing for me for too long is not really a good idea. But I stood anyway.”
Dabalos stood for 11 hours.
Senior Florence Hsueh stood for her faith and said she prayed throughout the night to stay warm.
“Knowing that Berkeley is so avant-garde in social justice, (I’m) sort of integrating that with my Christian faith,” Hsueh said. She stood from midnight until well into the morning.
The club used social media to draw attention to its campaign, taking photos of passing students holding signs reading “Freedom” and “I Stand” and posting them to its Facebook page. It also recruited the UC Men’s Octet and other UC Berkeley music groups to attract passers-by.
The club packed up Thursday afternoon, gathering signs sprawled across the steps and clearing off Sproul after its daylong campaign.
“It definitely got a lot of attention,” Cheung said. “Not many groups stand for a night.”
Libby Rainey covers higher education. Contact her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @rainey_l.