Above: Erika Totten (middle) struggles for the microphone to ensure that her voice would be heard during the Justice for All march on Saturday. Source: NICOLE L. CVETNIC/THE ROOT
Note: At bottom of article see report from The Real News about how the Sharpton-led march alienated Ferguson activists. For more reaction see ‘I could cry right now’: “Al Sharpton’s DC protest blasted for VIP section, threats to call security.“
Many young protesters believe that the Rev. Al Sharpton was co-opting their movement so, on Saturday, when none of the Ferguson youth leaders were slated to speak, a few hopped on stage and took the mic.
Billed as a rally against rampant police violence, Saturday’s Justice for All March in Washington D.C., organized by several civil rights organizations, including Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and the National Urban League, faced heavy criticism in the days leading up to it.
The primary concern among critics is what appears to be the purposeful distancing of Saturday’s march from the revolutionary movement that began in August after the state-sanctioned shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown by former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, while simultaneously benefiting from its momentum.
Though there were moments of great emotion during Saturday’s Justice For All March—particularly when the families of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley, Jonathan Crawford, III, Amadou Diallo, Brown and Garner, voiced their gratitude for Sharpton and the sea of supporters who have kept their loved ones names alive—the criticism that has followed the event largely proved to be true and young protesters all the way from Ferguson, Mo., made sure to let the world know it.
Johnetta Elzie, 25, an activist on the ground in Ferguson and St. Louis who has emerged as a leading voice in the movement, stormed the stage with other young organizers after NAN officials reportedly denied them access.
When I caught up with Elzie via phone after the march she said that they came to participate in a protest, not be denied access to a “VIP section.”
“When we first got there, two people from NAN told us that we needed a VIP pass or a press pass to sit on the ledge,” said Elzie in disbelief, the frustration still resonating in her voice. “If it is a protest, why do you need to have a VIP pass?”
Elzie’s friend and fellow protester, Erika Totten got them both a pass to be on the program.
“They gave us badges but didn’t write our names down. They never intended to let us speak. So when Erika said to follow her on stage, we did,” she said.
According to Elzie, once she finally did get a chance to speak, they cut her microphone.
“I was glad to get the support of the some in the crowd who chanted, ‘Let them speak, let them speak.’ One lady in the crowd said that I was being disrespectful. I think it’s disrespectful that black people are being killed every 28 hours. So what they’re telling me does not matter. It’s not our job to convince them that all black lives matter.”
Elzie’s feelings come from a place that has always been a part of every civil rights movement. For every peaceful speech given by Martin Luther King there is the image of gun-toting Malcom X peeking out the window. Both are extreme narratives in the same fight.
In the months that followed Brown’s death, the rallying cry of “hands up, don’t shoot!” was quickly joined by “I can’t breathe,” the last words spoken by 43-year-old Staten Island father of six, Eric Garner, when it was determined that NYPD officer Daniel Panteleo would face no consequences in Garner’s death.
Those two unjust decisions caused a collective righteous fury to erupt that has pushed police brutality into the national conversation, while simultaneously galvanizing a diverse generation of young, black people who, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., understand the “fierce urgency of now.”
This a generation of black activists for whom, rage is something to be neither quieted nor shamed in the face of continued assaults on black lives.
When I asked Elzie about the future of the movement, she said that, despite charges that young people have no direction, they’re doing what they’ve been doing since the beginning.
“There’s coalition building happening, there are things happening all the time. We’re working to make sure officers are held accountable for still trying to use the 5-second rule, Elzie continued. “Everything just takes time and we’re attacking it from all levels.”
In short, there will be no more business as usual.
Business as usual is the refusal to acknowledge that the primary function of peaceful protests is to allow some white people to feel safe in the face of black rage.
Business as usual, is to hold a march on the nation’s capital against police brutality and not mention the name of one, black woman who has been killed by police.
What the Ferguson organizers proved today is that from the streets to the nation’s capital, they will shut it down; that business as usual will not go unchallenged. And, for that, I salute them. I think we all should.
Kirsten West Savali is a cultural critic and senior writer for The Root, where she explores the intersections of race, gender, politics and pop culture. You can always find her where the good fight is—or good cookies. Follow her on Twitter.