Pictured together for the first time, from left, activists Bree Newsome, Johnetta Elzie, and DeRay McKesson
Sunday marked exactly 365 days since Ferguson, Missouri, teenager Michael Brown was shot, killed, and left on the scorching hot road by the local police for four hours on Canfield Drive. Since that day in 2014, the United States has become a protest nation
with an astounding 980 public protests nationwide. This past year has changed our country, as awareness of police brutality and systemic inequity is at a generational high.
So, as thousands of women and men from across the nation gathered this weekend in Ferguson, Missouri, it was equal parts reunion and mourning, but soon devolved into a painful, messy deja vu like night that looked and felt eerily similar to a more tragic, painful Ferguson of 2014. While the tragedy and pain will surely steal the headlines, and maybe they should, the day and the weekend were so much more than that.
Hundreds gathered peacefully on Canfield Drive to hear speakers and have a moment of silence at the exact time of Mike Brown's death.
Artists, leaders, and activists gathered together with one another throughout St. Louis.
Soon, though, a young man was shot by police and the man who filmed it was forcefully detained.
As people gathered and protested peacefully, police moved in to announce they would be breaking up the "unlawful assembly."
Police ended up shooting tear gas at peaceful protestors.
The night was such a whirlwind that it's difficult to fully wrap our minds around exactly what happened. What's painfully obvious is that we have a long way to go in this country as we address the deep rift between police and the community.