Protesters say the widely criticized reaction of the police who rolled military equipment into the streets and pointed guns at them during the initial protests after Brown’s death only served to prove demonstrators’ point: Police are overtly more brutal with black people.
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A crowd of hundreds observed four and half minutes of silence Sunday to mark a year since the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
“I think the region has experienced a new level of awakening and the greatest distance we have come is in that awakening”, said Rev. Traci Blackmon of Christ the King United Church of Christ.
Demonstrations ignited the street of Ferguson and captured the nation’s attention, giving birth to the “Black Lives Matter” movement. “Not in the sense of fighting for our rights but in the sense of fighting for our lives”.
Ferguson, where rioters raged for days after Brown’s death and the grand jury decision not to indict Wilson, was mostly calm Sunday.
The Justice Department reached the same conclusion in March, clearing Wilson.
Brown’s parents are suing Wilson and the city, alleging a wrongful death.
Michael Brown Sr. spoke Sunday, telling people that if not for them, his son’s killing would have been “swept under the carpet”.
Father Michael Pfleger says it’s not enough to just remember Brown, but force the country to address the issue of what he calls the genocide of black youth. “I’m still hurting. My family’s still hurting”, he said before the procession where a drum corps, some cars and several hundreds of people joined on the five-mile route to Normandy High School, The Denver Post reported. Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, did not attend the public events. “It’s a crisis that’s going on”. All three were white. Speaking on Saturday, he urged protesters to intensify their efforts to reform the criminal justice system. “I really hate that it happened”, Bland said on Sunday. Two local groups – Radical Washtenaw and Ann Arbor to Ferguson – organized the event.
Brown’s shooting sparked months of protests, including incidents of rioting and arson.
In the year that has passed, the U.S. Department of Justice released a scathing report showing systematic abuse through bench warrants for minor offenses of the city’s primarily African- American population.
Reverend Susan Nanny and her son, Jordan Nanny-Holmes, embrace while listening to poetry in Ferguson.
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The crowd then began a silent march from the spot where the unarmed Brown was fatally shot by Ferguson officer Darren Wilson on 9 August past year.
