Activists on Saturday called for mass civil disobedience on the highways in and around the St Louis suburb of Ferguson to protest the killing of a teenager by a police officer, with the leaders of one coalition encouraging supporters to stop their cars to tie up traffic on Labor Day.
The announcement came at a peaceful if at times tense march and rally that drew more than 1,000 demonstrators to some of the same Ferguson streets where the police clashed with protesters in the days after the killing of Michael Brown. Brown, 18, was shot on Aug. 9 by Officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson Police Department.
Organizers at the rally on Saturday called on demonstrators to drive on Interstate 70 and other area highways at 4:30pm today, turn their hazard lights on and stop their vehicles for 4.5 minutes to symbolize the 4.5 hours Brown’s body lay in the middle of the street before being removed by police.
Photo: AFP
“We’re going to tie it down, going to lock it down,” rally organizer Anthony Shahid told supporters from the stage at a Ferguson park. “I want the highways shut down. I know it’s a holiday, but it won’t be no good holiday.”
Shahid’s announcement was met with applause by many of the marchers, but it was unclear how many people would take part.
Only a few hundred demonstrators were in the park when Shahid made the appeal, and another organizer suggested that the plan could change because the action was still under discussion.
Photo: AFP
It was also unclear what the authorities intended to do in response to the plan.
“There will be an appropriate, measured response based on conditions, but we cannot discuss the specifics of operational plans,” Missouri Department of Public Safety spokesman Mike O’Connell said.
The march and rally were organized by a coalition of black activists and leaders largely from the St Louis region, including state legislators and lawyers, as well as representatives of the Nation of Islam, the NAACP, the New Black Panther Party and the Green Party.
Organizers with the group called the Justice for Michael Brown Leadership Coalition said they wanted the march to be a peaceful gathering and had coordinated some of the logistics with city, county and police officials.
For much of the march and rally, the police had a very light presence.
“They’ve already seen the whole world look at the missteps that they made, how they handled the black community like an army going to war in Iraq,” said Akbar Muhammad, an organizer of the demonstration and a top aide to Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam. “If they had any sense, they will handle it in a tactful manner.”
The march showed how difficult it might be to direct the actions of a young, decentralized and assertive protest movement.
During the demonstration, the march seemed to split, with some heading to a scheduled rally in a public park and others insisting that the marchers continue to the Ferguson police station.
Few seemed to know whether the turn into the park was the plan all along or an unscheduled deviation, and several marchers began a chant of “Ain’t no justice in the park!”
“If they stop here, a lot of people will feel misled,” said Trinette Buck, 40.
She said that the younger protesters were not waiting on leadership, nor were they concerned about what might happen if things turned ugly at the police station.
“There is no fear anymore,” she said. “It’s either stand up or die.”
A few marchers began heading to the police department without waiting for official word, peeling off in small groups and walking along the shoulder of roads, drawing supportive honks from cars along the way.
By the time the main body of the march, as well as the demonstration’s leaders, arrived at the police station, more than a 100 had already gathered and were chanting in a somewhat tense face-to-face confrontation with a line of police officers.
Shortly after 5pm, one of the marchers who had been taunting the police line was apparently placed under arrest. It was unclear why.
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