Protests and marches in cities across the U.S.: "Stop police brutality, repression and the criminalization of a generation"

27 October 2014. A World to Win News Service. All across the U.S., October was a "Month of resistance to police brutality, repression and the criminalization of a generation", a campaign initiated last April by Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA and Cornel West, a prominent intellectual who considers himself a revolutionary Christian. Although the 22 October Coalition has carried out similar protests since it was founded in 1996, this year's plans and actions were propelled by spiralling anger at police murders, some 60 nationwide in one recent month alone. In early August, in Ferguson, Missouri, police stopped 18-year old African-American Michael Brown for walking in the street and shot him many times while he stood with his hands up. This murder turned the small suburb of Saint Louis into a cauldron of protest, with hundreds of defiant local youth, joined by supporters from around the country, confronting police night after night despite military-style repression. These protests never died down, and during "Ferguson October", in the middle of the month, thousands marched through the town to demand that the officer who killed Brown be indicted. Dix and West along with a group of clergy and others were arrested for civil disobedience when they "laid siege" to the Ferguson Police Station, resisting police attempts to drive them back and "putting their bodies on the line to say no more to police murders of Black youth," as described in the RCP newspaper Revolution. Other October actions ranged from prison-gate and courthouse steps protests, rallies on sites of previous police killings, mass speak-outs against the deportation of immigrants reaching record levels under Obama, co-ordinated supportive sermons in churches and synagogues, university symposiums and a campus occupation to a variety of cultural events. People demanding "Justice for Mike Brown – Justice for Mike Brown means justice for us all" unexpectedly stood up among the audience to sing a "Requiem for Mike Brown" just before a Saint Louis symphony orchestra concert of Brahms' Requiem, winning respect and support from performers and many concert-goers of all ethnicities. The central focus of this month was 22 October, when marches, rallies and other vigorous forms of protest were held in cites and towns in every region across the country. Secondary school and university students played a key role. The National Stop Mass Incarceration Network reported, "From Tallahassee, Florida to Portland, Oregon; from Boston, Mass. to Tucson, Arizona... In Lexington, Albuquerque, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Chattanooga, streets and campuses across the country were alive with determined, militant protest on 22 October. Thousands of people in dozens of cities and towns manifested with determination, anger, creativity and deep conviction: mass incarceration, the criminalization of generation after generation of Black and Latino youth must stop! Black Lives Matter! Latino Lives Matter! All Lives Matter!" The following is from the 27 October issue of Revolution (revcom.us): Coast-to-coast, border to border, 22 October was a day of defiant struggle. In eighty cities, towns, and campuses, it was a day of diversity and creativity. A day of courage – going right up in the face of the forces of brutality, injustice, and repression. Youth locked down in the inner cities joined with clerics and academics. Parents of children murdered by police and families of prisoners stood shoulder to shoulder with activists for LGBT equality and supporters of the struggle for liberation of Palestine. Students from inner city high schools and universities walked out. All saying: Stop police brutality, repression, and the criminalization of a generation. In his message to the actions across the U.S. that day, Carl Dix said, "[I]ntensified police murder is a concentration of an overall program of suppression that targets Black and Latino people. This program includes warehousing more than 2 million people in prison, subjecting 80,000 people in prison to the torture of long term solitary confinement, stepped up detention and deportation of our immigrant sisters and brothers, and criminalizing young people. All this amounts to a slow genocide that is breaking the bodies and crushing the spirits of tens of millions of Black and Latino people. These horrors are built into the very fabric of this system, and I’ll tell you, it’s going to take revolution nothing less to end them once and for all. And everyone who sees these horrors for what they are needs to act now — to join in building powerful resistance to these horrors, resistance that can beat them back and ultimately can stop them." A Black woman university student participating in one of the 22 October actions told an interviewer, "I came because of mass incarceration. Because police are killing people for literally nothing. And I am here because these are really all my people, no matter what the skin colour. And I am out here because I could easily be one of the people who is shot down for nothing. So I'm waiting for change. I'm waiting for revolution. This was impactful. It made a difference and when I go back to UC Berkeley, we're going to bring this back here and try to figure out what we can do to make actual revolution, actual change. Link arms, let's go. March. Push. I am so ready." In Ferguson, Missouri, a multinational crowd of hundreds marched on West Florissant avenue where Mike Brown was killed, and where protesters have been brutally attacked by police. Later that night they marched to the Ferguson police station (site of regular nightly protests for 11 weeks). A theme throughout the day was "Justice 4 Mike Brown / INDICT Now!" At night a giant "Wanted" poster was projected on a building across from the pig station: a picture of [police shooter] Darren Wilson with the words "Wanted for the murder of Mike Brown." In the nearby town of Clayton, people marched right into the Saint Louis County police headquarters to protest the prosecutor’s blatant pro-police actions in the case. In Seattle, Washington, 40 students from Garfield and other high schools marched to a police station after school to demand police stop targeting youth of colour. Later in the day some 100 people, including family members of people killed by police, immigrant rights supporters, and Jen Marlowe, co-author of the book I Am Troy Davis [an African-American executed for murder in 2011, even though evidence against him was shown to be false], marched and rallied in the pouring rain. The mixed crowd of high school and college students, including Seattle Pacific University’s Black Student Union, middle class and homeless people, political activists and revolutionaries as well as first-time protesters confronted police and blocked busy intersections during rush hour. In New York City, 500-600 people rallied at Union Square, where one person after another with a relative murdered by police spoke out, including the sister of Eric Garner [recently choked to death on a street corner by the police who accused him of selling untaxed cigarettes]. Carl Dix declared his determination to march into Times Square, a symbol to the whole world, despite being denied a permit, and invited the crowd to join him. The diverse crowd – whites, Latinos, Black people, gay and straight, students including from Columbia, New York University, Fordham, and the New School, marched through the heart of Manhattan, right past police barricades into Times Square, taking over the "red stairs"overlooking the plaza. In the San Francisco Bay Area, after 150 students rallied on campus, 60 University of California- Berkeley students marched to Oscar Grant Plaza [named after a Black youth shot dead while lying on the ground in handcuffs] in downtown Oakland. Students from at least nine high schools and eight other colleges took part, including 50 San Francisco high school students who walked out from school. Two dozen members of a local Unitarian Church, led by their pastor, also marched to join the action. Students and clergy joined attorney John Burris, Jeralyn Blueford, whose son was murdered by Oakland police, Tef Poe and Tory Russell from Ferguson, and longtime revolutionary Joey Johnson at the rally. Then more than 650 (with more joining in) took off with whistles blowing and drums beating. At the Federal Building, there was a huge die-in and rousing speeches. Over 500 copies of Revolution newspaper were distributed along the march. In Chicago, high school youth, joined some 500 others, including parents whose children were murdered by police, college students, prisoner rights groups, and clergy were honoured on the stage for an electric march through central Chicago. Last week high school students wondered if they’d get killed coming downtown to march, but on 2 October they picked up whistles and posters and made the base of the famous Picasso sculpture [in the city's central square] their own. In Los Angeles, over 400 people marched through the city centre, including family and friends of more than 12 people killed by police and students from campuses across the area. At times the sound of blowing whistles was deafening. The march went to the LA Criminal Court, the LA jail and LA police headquarters where Reverend Frank Wulf, pastor of the United University Church on the University of Southern California campus, along with a leader of the Revolution Club, co-led a powerful rally. Speakers included family members of people murdered by police, Today Show analyst and author Lisa Bloom, Jim Lafferty of the National Lawyers Guild, and Joe Veale from the LA chapter of the RCP. Among many other places, reports of protests were also received from San Diego, California; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Salt Lake City, Utah; Kansas City, Missouri; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Greensboro, North Carolina; Greenville, South Carolina; Cleveland, Ohio; Lansing, Michigan; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Dallas, Texas; Washington, D.C.; and Rockford, Illinois. This movement has called for people to wear orange on 30 October to make resistance resonate further throughout society and deliver a message to one and all that mass incarceration and all its consequences must be stopped, and that people are determined to stop it. "Be creative. Be bold. Be determined. Make a lot of noise, get a lot of attention! "