People from around the country are gathered
in St. Louis for “Ferguson October”, a weekend meant to
reenergize attention around the August 9 shooting of
18-year-old Michael Brown by Ferguson cop Darren Wilson
and the militarized-police response to subsequent protests and
media attention. Since Brown was killed, two more young black
men—Kajieme
Powell, 25, in late August and Vonderrit
Myers Jr., 18, last week—have been fatally shot by St.
Louis-area police officers, further fueling this budding crucible
of a new civil rights movement.
Today was designated #MoralMonday.
After gathering at Ferguson’s Wellspring Church for prayer and
training, demonstrators marched to the Ferguson police station,
where clergy stood toe-to-toe with cops in riot gear and offered to
take their confessions. Some held
up mirrors and suggested police “look at yourselves.”
“This is what theology looks like,” chanted
clergy members. Others sang “We Shall Overcome.” Several clergy
members were
arrested and taken away by police,
as was Dr. Cornel West—who told a crowd on Sunday night that he
had come to Ferguson “to go to jail”, not give a speech.
“Power concedes nothing without a demand,” states the
#MoralMonday event page. “On Monday, we’re taking our cue from
the fearless activists in North Carolina who … kicked off the
Moral Mondays movement for progressive change by engaging in civil
disobedience every week, reminding all of us that these actions
have been a part of every major movement for change.”
Ferguson October events
kicked off Friday with a march on the St. Louis District
Attorney’s office and a panel discussion on militarization and
surveillance at the Dar Aljalal Islamic Center. On Saturday, a
morning march ended at Kiener Plaza in downtown St. Louis, where
activists spoke before a large and diverse crowd. That evening,
protesters marched from the street where Brown was shot to the
Ferguson police station, led by a car covered in memorial messages
for Brown:
On Sunday, musicians played in Ferguson throughout the afternoon
and
17 were arrested in a sit-in outside a St. Louis QuickTrip.
That night
brought “an evening of reflection and resistance” which
included speeches from St. Louis rapper and activist Tef Poe,
Central Reform Congregation Rabbi Susan Talve, and Christian
author/publisher Rev. Jim Wallis, along with a keynote address
from West.
Los Angeles Times reporter Matt
Pearce wrote
of a palpable generational divide at Sunday night’s
activities, with a “raucous” crowd “heckling the president of the
NAACP and successfully demanding that young demonstrators get a
place on stage”:
Moments earlier, the president of the National Assn. for the
Advancement of Colored People, Cornell William Brooks, gave a fiery
speech in which he said, “Oh say, can you see Ferguson, Mo.,
transformed?” Tepid applause greeted that line, and a man in the
crowd began to shout: “Go to Canfield (he apartment complex near
where Brown was shot) with that! We got revolutionaries out
here [on the streets] starving!”
Poe told the crowd: “This ain’t your grandparents’ civil rights
movement.”
With all due respect, it actually sounds a
lot like our parents’ and grandparents’ civil rights movement
to me. We are seeing marches and chants, sit-ins and protest music.
We are seeing people people of different races finally start paying
attention to problems that have long been plaguing black
communities. We are seeing the potential for
new political coalitions. We are seeing justified anger,
inspiring optimism and resilience, calls to pray, calls
to arms, calls for policy reform. We are watching radicals,
populists, wonks, artists, clergy, media, academics, and ordinary
citizens sort out how and where they fit into the scheme of reform
and resistance.
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