Photo via Evelyn Hockstein for WashingtonPost
On Saturday December 13, 2014 Rev. Al Sharpton, Founder and President of the National Action Network, led the Justice For All March in Washington, DC where activists and family members of victims spoke on the call to action for the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and the many others that have fallen victim to the police brutality and inhumane injustice.
The families of those killed as a result of police brutality were at the march supporting one another. Those of which included: the parents and family of Michael Brown Jr. of Ferguson, Missouri, the mother and wife of Eric Garner of NYC, the parents of Tamir Rice, a 12 year-old shot and killed as result of possessing a toy gun in Cleveland, Ohio, the family of Akai Gruley, who was shot and killed by a police officer in NY housing –Pink Houses, the mother of Trayvon Martin, and the mother of Amadou Diallo who was shot 41 times and killed by police resulting in the misunderstanding that his wallet was a gun in 1999. The expressions of the masses of people at the march as they listened to the encouraging words from these families was breath-taking because in that moment it was not about race or gender or sexuality or social status, it was about the rights of all people in this country.
Kadiato Diallo, mother of Amadou Diallo, gave a moving speech as she made clear of the trend that has been reoccurring in this country that must be eradicated: “Why our sons look suspicious? Why each time our sons go down are they stereotyped and portrayed? Why? Leslie’s son was supposed to go to college. In the news, you see something else. Trayvon Martin went out to get something to drink, but in the news it’s something else. Time and time again, we are going through the same history.” The only way for there to be a change is to be cognizant of what is happening and then we as a people united can demand our voices to be heard.
Rev. Al Sharpton proclaimed the common goal all of the people had: “We have the same goal of equal protection under the law. It’s right against wrong and this is an American march for the rights of American people.”
The agenda of the march addressed three main objectives as solutions to this epidemic. Firstly, a law on judicial threshold, as it is the duty of the federal government to have a plausible threshold to protect the people. Secondly, the justice department acquiring a division funded to deal with this and other issues that arise in sight of the problem at hand. Lastly, to obtain the power of special prosecutors, other than the local prosecutors, to have a non-conflicted inquiry.
It was a delighted sight as students in the community presented speeches on the matters that hit them indirectly; the intellectual involvement and participation from the youth and their peers was a message that made clear of all the those affected by this –people young and old of all backgrounds. Leighton Watson President of Howard University’s Student Association addressed questions that yielded a reasonable solution for what should be implemented into the communities: “We need real community policing. I’m not talking about Bob takes cultural sensitivity classes, community policing. I’m talking about, the dude you played basketball with on the court, community policing. The girl you went to go get your hair done with type of community policing. We need Cadet Programs that go back into the public high schools, gets those kids and get them to become police officers – that’s community policing.”
It is often asked why result to marching after such sequence of events and the answer from the President and CEO of NAACP explicitly stated lucid reasons. Cornell William Brooks said in his speech, “We the people marched together. We marched together a little over one mile because the distance between these two points is a measure of our determination. A measure of our commitment, measure of our result because we believe all lives matter. Every child matters. Every citizen matters. All of our children matter. We will march until hell freezes over and when it does we will march on the ice.”
If you were unable to witness this march in person either in DC or in NYC, you can view it on C-SPAN at http://www.c-span.org/video/?323260-1/justice-march.