St Louis protests: Ferguson activists reject religious leaders’ platitudes

Younger black generation rails at ineffectiveness of peaceful tactics as day of mass civil disobedience begins across city



Cornel West said the older generation 'has been too obsessed with being successful rather than being faithful to a cause'. Photograph: James Cooper/Demotix/Corbis

Chris McGreal in St Louis
The Guardian, Monday 13 October 2014 03.47 EDT

Frustration and anger among young black Americans at an older generation’s apparent failure to adequately respond to the killing of Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson upended a key event at a weekend of mass protest on Sunday.

The showdown exposed a generational divide over how best to confront police racism, brutality and use of excessive force as organisers of the “weekend of resistance”, which has drawn activists from across the US, plan to stage mass civil disobedience across St Louis on Monday.

While older civil rights leaders hark back to the more peaceful methods of half a century ago, some younger people question their effectiveness today and are pressing for more confrontational tactics.

The fuse was lit when hundreds of people who came to hear the intellectual and activist Cornel West speak were subjected to speeches by a succession of preachers from the major religions offering essentially the same message about loving one’s fellow man and standing up against injustice. The meeting was billed as being “in the tradition of the civil rights movement” but the tone was in part governed by the venue for the meeting, St Louis University, a Catholic institution.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/13/st-louis-protests-religious-leaders-messages-anger-ferguson-activists

There are some old and powerful dynamics at work.

http://www.historyorb.com/america/civilrights.php