2014: People in Ferguson Rise Up! The Upsurge Spreads
January 5, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The murders by police this past summer of Eric Garner and Michael Brown—along with murder after murder after murder of other unarmed Black and Latino men, women and children during these past months—and then the exoneration of the killers are, in one horrific sense, nothing new. These monsters have been doing this for years, and for years the system has let them walk.
But this time things changed. People in Ferguson, Missouri—the everyday people in the streets—rose up against the murder of Michael Brown and refused to back down in the face of violent repression. In doing so, they forced the world to wake the hell up. Around the country, and beyond, tens of thousands of people have poured into the streets from classrooms, housing projects, campuses, churches, and workplaces—blocking bridges and freeways, defying threats and arrests, and disrupting “business as usual.” Artists, entertainers, and athletes are speaking out.
What had been an outrage that oppressed people had been forced to learn to accept—however bitterly—and that other people had learned to ignore or shrug off, became intolerable. The inspiring and powerful movement that has begun to emerge in the wake of the uprising in Ferguson needs to spread and intensify.
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