By M. Bilal Kenasari
WASHINGTON
Demonstrators gathered Monday in front of the Justice Department to protest a grand jury's decision not to prosecute a white police officer for fatally shooting an unarmed black teen.
It was the 8th day of protests following the decision not to indict officer Darren Wilson for killing 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
The group of about 100 protesters said it will shut down streets "anytime, anywhere until justice" Wilson is arrested and charged.
Using the hashtag #HandsUpWalkOutNationwide, protesters nationwide called for a strike that began at 1 p.m. EST and asked workers to walk out of their jobs and schools.
Erika Totten, 32, from Alexandria, Virginia, was arrested Saturday for shutting down one of the busiest highways in the nation’s capital. She was released Sunday but had a message for motorists. “Stand with us or get stuck in traffic.”
The mother of a 5-year-old said she doesn't allow her husband to go jogging anymore because “a hoodie on a black body means you are a criminal, a threat. That your death will be justified.”
Totten, who characterized herself as "soccer mom" said she has been in Ferguson since the grand jury's decision and "was tear gassed and shot at for three days" but vowed to return to Ferguson on Thursday because she was "honored" to be among the protesters.
Also among the demonstrators was Deangelo Scott, old enough to have seen two of the U.S’s most revered civil rights leaders. "Politicians do not hear our problems and since Martin Luther King, I have been waiting for somebody to fill those shoes,” he said. “Now I realize some leaders now on the streets, (pointing to Totten) and I am hopeful change is coming. We will get to the promised land land as Luther King suggested and by any means necessary as Malcolm X said."
President Barack Obama is expected to meet with his civil rights groups on Monday to discuss ways of improving law enforcement’s relationship with black communities.
He has also urged protesters to keep their demonstrations peaceful, in keeping with the wishes of the Brown family that urged demonstrators to focus their “frustration in ways that will make a positive change."
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