Thanksgiving in America is a hallowed tradition; Thursday is for eating the traditional dinner of turkey and mashed potatoes, and the next day is for the frenzy of commerce known as Black Friday. But this year, the holiday weekend looked a little bit different, as protesters across the nation leveraged the rituals that kick off the holiday season to call for racial justice.
After St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert P. McCulloch announced on Monday night that no charges would be filed against Darren Wilson-the white officer who shot and killed unarmed black 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri last August-protests erupted in major cities throughout the United States. And the ever-vigilant protesters were not going to let Thanksgiving celebrations stop them from being heard. If anything, they used the holiday as an opportunity to call attention to their cause.
On Tuesday, protests were organized in New York City, Washington D.C, Los Angeles, Nashville, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and beyond.
Hundreds of protesters in Minneapolis took to the streets on Tuesday night, snarling traffic; there were two incidents where drivers, fed-up with the rally, drove through crowds. In Atlanta, several thousand marched in the streets; 24 were arrested. Washington, D.C.'s protest also drew thousands of people who marched down busy streets towards the Capitol building. Nashville's protests originally began as a candlelight vigil that morphed into a march that shut down streets.
The nationwide protests didn't end on Tuesday. Throughout the week people in cities continued to demonstrate. On Wednesday, the biggest travel day of the year, Los Angeles protesters used their vehicles to jam traffic on the 101 freeway.
Leaving no event untouched, protesters also converged upon the route of the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. Most television networks didn't show footage of the protesters during the parade, but on a quick glance at the #stoptheparade hashtag on Twitter proved that protests were not dying down for the holiday.
On Black Friday, community organizers and leaders urged people not to shop, calling on them to boycott Black Friday instead. St. Louis protesters staged a die-in at the St. Louis Galleria Mall. Holding signs demanding justice for Michael Brown and other victims of police violence, the protesters lay down on the floors of the mall, disrupting shoppers to the point where the mall was eventually closed for a period of time.
On Sunday, D.C. protesters kept the movement alive by causing I-395-a major thoroughfare into the city-to come to a grinding halt. The NFL's St. Louis Rams showed their support by coming out on the field with their hands up before their game against the Oakland Raiders. The St. Louis Police Officers Association, offended by the show of solidarity with the Ferguson protesters, not only asked for apology but also demanded that the players involved be disciplined.
The protests are likely here to stay for a while. This Thanksgiving week, cities from Boston to Oakland proved that America is in a new era of civil rights; people are demanding an end to police violence and the recognition of the worth of black lives. When Bob McCulloch declined to indict the police officer who killed Michael Brown, he sparked a movement that will surely go down in the history books.
