By Ben Brumfield
(CNN) — If the color were removed from the boundless images of protests on America’s streets over the last two nights, they might be mistaken for black-and-white photos of the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s.
Marchers with signs in Dallas, Boston, Chicago and Manhattan, screamed for justice. And not only for one African-American man, Eric Garner, who died after a white police officer wrested him to the ground with a chokehold.
The grand jury decision not to prosecute Officer Daniel Pantaleo may have unleashed the dam burst of protests, but the anger of a multitude marching through in the dark has encompassed more than Garner’s death in Staten Island.
“It’s happening in every city, every town. It’s happening here in Pittsburgh,” Julia Johnson told CNN affiliate WPXI.
The demand for change in law enforcement and government has been broad.
“The whole damn system is guilty as hell,” some signs glowing under street lights read. It treats some Americans less equally than others, protesters alleged.
“I’m out here because the system has failed us too many times,” Courtney Wicker, a New York protester, told CNN affiliate NY1. “It makes me feel like there’s no justice.
‘Black lives matter’
“Racism kills,” read a sign held over the heads of a crowd. It summed up the sentiment in a New York City square framed by office high-rises speckled with lighted windows late Thursday.
Put the color back into the protest images, and it would be impossible to describe the diverse crowd flowing together through the streets in any racial terms — other than human race — with every hue of complexion that lives in America marching side by side.
Additional Reading
November 2014 eGazette – Racism in USA and Universal Brotherhood in Islam
