Marchers declare fight for justice in police shootings not nearly over

22nd December 2014   ·   0 Comments

By Hazel Trice Edney
Contributing Writer

(TriceEdneyWire.com) — Tens of thou­sands of protestors in Downtown Washington, D.C., on December 13 sent a message to the nation that the fight against police brutality, profiling and killings of unarmed Black men will only grow if nothing is done about it.

“Look at these thousands of people! They’re Black; they’re white; they’re young; they’re old! This is what America looks like!” proclaimed the Rev. Al Sharpton, who led the throng. “You can bury us, but you didn’t know that we were a seed! When you bury us, we sprout up and start blocking traffic! Our seed grows into civil disobedience. Our seed grows into nonviolence. Bury us if you want; but we’ll grow stronger and last longer!”

Quoting the proverb he said was given to him by his daughter, Sharpton received cheers and applause from the massive crowd that had just ended a 10-block march to a rally near the foot of the U.S. Capitol building.

“I stood in this city and saw a Black man put his hand on the Bible and be sworn in as president. But I am also proud today to see young White men holding up signs saying Black Lives Matter!” Sharpton said.

The marches began in Ferguson, Mo. after the Aug. 9 shooting of unarmed Michael Brown, who witnesses say had his hands up when shot by Officer Darren Wilson. The protests have grown and intensified across the nation since a grand jury refused to indict Wilson and then another grand jury refused to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who killed Eric Garner of Staten Island, N.Y., a husband and father of six children, who Pantaleo killed in a videotaped chokehold.

White protestors have joined in with the predominately African-American crowds in marches and so-called “die-ins,” lying down in the streets while blocking traffic. Days before Saturday’s march on Washington, hundreds of Harvard Students staged a “die in”, blocking traffic in Cambridge, Mass.

On December 13, thousands mar­ched through D.C. and New York City, carrying signs proclaiming, “No Justice, No Peace!” and “Black Lives Matter!”

Chants of “No Justice, No Peace! No Racist Police!” echoed through the Downtown D.C. streets. Civil rights organizations were joined by scores of other groups like nurses associations, colleges, sororities and fraternities. One white man carried a sign that said, “Stop Police Terror” while an Ethiopian man simply held up two books. One was titled, The U.S. Constitution. The other was titled, The New Jim Crow.

Marchers wore T-shirts inscribed with the words, “I Can’t Breathe,” the plea repeated 11 times by Garner before dying from the chokehold.

The march drew a multiracial, intergenerational sea of sign-toting citizens from all over the nation.

Wanda Sharif, from Beaumont, Texas, had already been in Washington to help care for her grandchild, but extended her visit to attend the march. The grandmother of seven recalled marching with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at 11 years old, and attending all-white schools until enrolling at Spelman College in Atlanta.

“I’ve been doing this for three generations. I have to be here to document for my grandchildren, so they know I was here,” she says. “It’s important that everybody sees – not just America, but the whole world should see that we have not made all the progress and accomplished all that we thought we did. More and more eyes are opening. We’re still fighting for the same things we were fighting for in the ‘60s.”

Washington D.C. residents Albert and Andrea Elliott brought their 12-year-old grandson, Jeremiah, to use the march as a teachable moment.

“I brought my grandson to his first march so he understands that what he is doing is right. We’re teaching him solidarity…and that he can speak up and be nonviolent without being afraid,” she says. “We as a people have to stick together and be more involved…. We have to go to the source, where the laws are made, to put our foot on their necks.”

As they planned their attendance, Jeremiah asked about previous civil rights demonstrations, police violence, and tear gas.

“It’s not fair to kill Black people because you have the power and authority to do stuff like this that we can’t,” he says of his personal reasons for attending. “I don’t think it’s fair to kill Black people for no reason.”

University of Maryland students and Divine Nine fraternity members Marcus Davis, Justin Ferguson, and Akiel Pyant carried a “Black Lives Matter” banner.

“I’m here because I’m concerned about the future. If our grandparents went through this, and we’re going through this, Lord only knows what my grandchildren will go through,” says Davis, a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

Families of Brown, Garner, and family members of a list of other Black men killed by police officers or authorities stood on the platform alongside Sharpton. Others included Samaria Rice, the mother of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, shot and killed by a Cleveland police officer last month while playing with a toy gun; and the family of John Crawford III, a 22-year-old fatally shot by police inside an Ohio Walmart while carrying a BB gun.

Leaders of the march warned against complacency, declaring that the protests across the nation are only the beginning.

“You guys look good out there and we’re very proud to stand here, but it cannot stop here,” said Sybrina Fulton, the mother of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, killed by exonerated neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman two years ago. “This has to be the start.”

March leaders came with specific demands:

Sharpton said his National Action Network would press Congress to establish a law that dismantles the high threshold that appears to block citizens from obtaining justice in police matters.

“We’re not saying all police are bad…We’re not anti-police, but we’re anti-brutality and the federal government must have a threshold to protect us,” Sharpton said. He added that he wants the Justice Department to have a specific budget to deal with such a threshold and finally, he said special prosecutors must be appointed in cases involving police instead of local prosecutors who are usually prosecuting people for the police.

President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder largely got a pass from march leaders who appear to bypass them to pressure Congress for new laws.

“President Obama and Eric Holder; they’re doing their jobs,” said Melanie Campbell, presi-dent/CEO of the National Coalition for Black Civic Participation. “But they can’t do it alone. We need Congress to act to end police brutality and excessive force.”

National Urban League Presi­dent/CEO Marc Morial compared the new movement to the demands that came forth after the wrongful deaths of Emmett Till in 1955; the 1963 deaths of the four little girls, Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, killed in a bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham; and the 1964 death of civil rights organizers Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney in Mississippi. Goodman and Schwerner were white.

Those killings led to a movement that “knocked down the walls of segregation; passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” Morial said. “This movement cannot be a movement without objectives.”

Morial outlined a list of objectives, including body and dashboard cameras for police; a review and revision of policies on use of deadly force by police; review and strengthening of police hiring standards; mandatory reporting of police lethal force incidents to federal authorities; creation of a national data base of complaints against police and a national comprehensive anti-racial profiling law.

The lack of action will cause de­mon­strations to escalate, leaders warn.

Marveling at the crowd, Lesley McSpadden, the mother of Michael Brown, said, “What a sea of people. If they don’t see this and make a change, I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Said Sharpton, “I want Congress to know we are serious. We organized these thousands in eight days…Don’t let us go home and organize three weeks on you because we will be back over and over again!”

Gwen Carr, the mother of Garner, echoed, “We will come here as many times as it takes. We will come here over and over and over again. But, when we come, we want to come [because of] a celebration; not an assassination.”

Giving the benedictory prayer, the Rev. Jamal-Harrison Bryant declared, “This is not the end; it is the beginning…We want to make sure that ‘our lives matter’ is not a slogan, but it’s a lifestyle.”

This article originally published in the December 22, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.