Colleen Hammond | News Editor
03/18/2021
Dannielle Brown has officially ended her 237 day long hunger strike on Thursday, March 11.
To make the announcement, Brown held a gathering at Freedom Corner, where she began her hunger strike, in celebration of her 50th birthday and the launch of the Marquis Jaylen Brown Foundation.
The first thing she ate, she said, was salmon. During her hunger strike, she only drank liquids and nutrients — no solid food.
Brown started her hunger strike on July 4, 2020 in protest against Duquesne University’s handling of the death of her son, former Duquesne football player, Marquis Jaylen “JB” Brown.
Brown’s father, George Clark, attended the ceremony and made the first donation to the new foundation.
On Oct. 4, 2018, JB died after falling from the 16th floor of his apartment in Brottier Hall.
Dannielle began her hunger strike with three demands for the university: an independent reinvestigation of her son’s death, to equip all Duquesne Police officers with body cameras and to train all campus police to respond appropriately to mental health crises among the student body.
