About ten students held hands in front of Old Main yesterday and chanted: "Now more than ever, all the brothers and sisters must come together."

The students gathered for Black Caucus' fifth annual rally titled "The State of the Black Student," which focused on increasing diversity at Penn State, said Black Caucus Vice President Darryl Watson.

Following Watson's introduction, civil rights activist Shanta Driver reminded the students every social movement starts small. "We do not count our strength in numbers but in the quality of what we are fighting for," said Driver, who is the national director of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, & Immigrants Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary.

As the group listened, Driver told the audience that "too few" black students attend Penn State. "There are many desirous students within and outside the state who deserve the right for an education and should be here," Driver said. "We should defend their right to be at this university. We should open it up to all students or see it shut down."

Driver said her generation was too complacent in fighting for equal treatment. Driver graduated from Harvard in 1975 with a bachelor's degree in psychology and social relations.

"My generation dropped the ball. We stopped fighting and organizing. We said that progress had been made. But we were wrong," she said. "We need to use this opportunity and the gifts of intellectual prowess to continue fighting for our rights."

Watson said Penn State must progress in treating students fairly and creating diversity in the student body.

"We need to look at minority recruitment instead of destroying the offices which promote it," Watson said. "We need administrators not to foster diversity but to bring it in. After 100 years of having black students on campus, we still aren't diverse."

In a telephone interview, Vice Provost of Educational Equality Terrell Jones said Penn State is always working to increase the number of black students.

"The number of students has increas-ed every year for the last 10 years," Jones said. "We'd like to have a reasonable representation and more representative of the state of Pennsylvania."

According to the Pennsylvania Association of Colleges and University's Web site, 50,917 black students were enrolled in higher education institutions across Pennsylvania for the 2004-2005 school year. The Penn State Fact Book ethnicity enrollment statistics show black students comprise 5 percent of the university's total enrollment.

Black Caucus President Gandarvaka Gray said she first felt disheartened about the number of students attending the rally.

"But if we weren't here today, things would still go on. People would still get called n------ and be disrespected," Gray said. "We don't speak just for blacks. We speak for so many people. We speak for humans everywhere."

The rally ended as it began, with students gathering in a circle and chanting. They continued to chant as they walked to the HUB-Robeson Center.

After watching the rally, Ruth Alonso (graduate-Spanish literature) said she thought the event was necessary.

"There might be a policy of silence related to certain aspects of equality in the university," she said. "Everyone should know what's going on."

Black Caucus member and former president Ed Smith (senior-economics) said the group would continue to send their message, despite the small turnout.

"We will continue to grow and expand and bring more people in," he said.