Calls to action in anticipation of the Ferguson grand jury’s decision rang out Monday in Atlanta – complete with times (Tuesday rather than Monday night), places (Underground Atlanta, Woodruff Park) and ground rules (no violence).
True to those plans, the city remained largely quiet Monday night after the announcement that Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson will not face charges in the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown. Hours after the news broke, a spokesman for the Atlanta Police Department said no incidents had been reported.
But the mood among organizers of Tuesday’s planned events was somber and even bitter.
“America calls for black and brown people to respect the criminal justice system but it doesn’t respect us,” said Markel Hutchins, who was among those who earlier in the day met with police officials to ensure that Atlanta’s reaction would be peaceful. “There will be repercussions in Ferguson and repercussions in America,” Hutchins said.
John Evans, head of the DeKalb County chapter of the NAACP, was even more downbeat. “It’s a disgusting night and some of us aren’t surprised,” Evans said. “They’re still telling us, ‘Hey we don’t want you, we don’t like you, we’re going to kill you.’”
A post-announcement rally was announced on Twitter for Morehouse College, the historically black all-male private school located south of downtown.
But school administrators banned the media from campus. “Students are gathered in order to have an opportunity to react together. Privately,” said Morehouse spokeswoman Elise Durham.
Woodruff Park was quiet and surrounded by barricades.
Speaking at a press conference in the park, Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., said: “This is a sad day. We as a nation have to figure out how to stop the bleeding during an emergency. We live in a death culture. We at the King Center will continue to be ready to education and train people on nonviolence.”
Appearing with her, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, said: “Tragically the message coming out of Ferguson is black lives don’t matter. … On Aug. 9, Michael Brown lost his life. Tonight he lost his humanity.”
At the Atlantic Grill in Atlantic Station, recent Morehouse graduate Blake Roberts called the decision disheartening. “It’s messed up,” said Roberts, 23, who lives in Decatur. “For younger people there, it gives them a hopeless perspective.”
Stan Wilson, 57, the grill’s general manager, discussed race relations with another patron, saying it’s “sad” that there is still a racial divide in America. “I just want everybody to get along,” he said. “I just want everyone to be okay. Calm communication is a good thing.”
Just a few hours earlier, with reports swirling that the grand jury had completed its work, a coalition of Atlanta student groups and civil rights veterans met with representatives of local police agencies with just that end in mind. The organizers pledged peaceful, if impassioned, protests.
“Atlanta is unlike other city in the nation, and in fact in the world,” Hutchins said after the meeting in the King Historic District. “We know how to do demonstrations. We know how to do direct action. And we know how to sit at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood.”
As for anyone who might not have other ideas, Hutchins said, protest organizers would help to “detect and weed (them) out.”
On a nearby sidewalk, representatives of several student groups yelled slogans and gave TV interviews. “It is our duty to fight for our freedom! It is our duty to win!” they chanted as the cameras looked on.
According to a press release, the groups represented included Southerners On New Ground, #ItsBiggerThanYou, MXGM (the Malcom X grass roots movement) and Gen Y. It invited anyone who has experienced mistreatment at the hands of police or other authorities to the “SpeakOUT” at Underground Atlanta at 5 p.m. Tuesday.
The release referred to Michael Brown’s death as an “execution” and decried what it called “hostile levels of state violence and police terror on every hand.” But it also declared: “we, the organizers of the rally chose non-violence actions and protest and encourage others to do so.”
In Savannah, where a grand jury is set to consider whether to charge police in the shooting of a handcuffed suspect, streets also remained quiet Monday night.
Community leaders, who actively protested the local officer-involved shooting, said they had no immediate plans to protest the grand jury’s decision in Missouri.
“The energy they have in Ferguson is not matched with the energy in Savannah,” said the Rev. Dr. Leonard Small of Litway Missionary Baptist Church.
Small said youth in Savannah have “all but given up” when faced with these sorts of issues. “All they’ve heard from officials is ‘just don’t make the tourists stop coming.’”
Since Brown died on Aug. 9, the Atlanta area has seen a handful of demonstrations, all of them peaceful.
In late August, as many as 1,000 people rallied outside CNN Center in downtown Atlanta to protest events in Missouri. And just last month, a human blockade temporarily stopped traffic on the Downtown Connector near Freedom Parkway. Protest organizers told the Associated Press the action was designed to draw attention to mass incarceration and police brutality against African-Americans, including Brown’s death.
Last week, in anticipation of the grand jury’s decision, DeKalb County police officials convened a meeting of law enforcement leaders from throughout the region to discuss how they would meet protests. The meeting also included representatives of local civil rights groups, churches and schools, as well as high school and college students. The message from law enforcement officials was that they would respect the rights of peaceful protesters but would move swiftly to deal with anyone who attempted to incite violence or destroy property.
The FBI had earlier warned police agencies throughout the country to expect possible infiltration of local protests by outsiders bent on spreading chaos and creating confrontations with police.
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