Day 65: Cornel West, Carl Dix, Among Protesters Arrested After Ferguson Weekend of Resistance
The immediately below is contributed by Gregory Koger. Further below is a report from Carl Dix written Sunday evening, October 12.
Earlier today Cornel West and Carl Dix - cofounders of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network and initiators of the October 2014 national Month of Resistance to Mass Incarceration, Police Terror, Repression & the Criminalization of a Generation - were arrested at the Ferguson police department, along with faith leaders and others. Their arrests - part of the Ferguson October Weekend of Resistance - came after over two months of defiant protests sparked by the police execution of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson. Despite the arrests of hundreds of people for protesting during the course of the Ferguson uprising, Wilson has not spent one day in jail.
Dr. West was the keynote speaker at St. Louis University Sunday night, where a number of youth who have been on the front lines of the Ferguson uprising demanded their voices be heard and were invited onto the stage to speak. After the event, several thousand people took to the streets of St. Louis, gathering at the site of the police murder of Vonderrit Myers, another young Black man who's life was stolen by police just blocks from St. Louis University last week. The march ended with an occupation of St. Louis university, where the crowd called on students to come out of their dorms and into the streets to stand with the youth under the gun of police terror & the New Jim Crow.
A report from Carl Dix, Sunday, October 12, 2014:
Dear friends,
We've reached the last day of Ferguson weekend. Today as the Amerikkkan empire celebrates the beginnings of the occupation of this land which led to the genocide against the native inhabitants, we here are preparing to put our bodies on the line to say NO MORE to police murder of Black youth.
Ferguson October has already represented a leap in resistance to police terror, mass incarceration and all its consequences, and today's events will take things farther. Our responsibility coming off that is to make it a springboard for going farther in putting up a huge STOP SIGN to the horrors the criminal "injustice" system in this country enforces on people.
We'll update you on the developments today and be getting to you soon about what's next, but let me say now that October 22, the National Day of Protest to stop Police Brutality is 9 days from now, and we have to be gearing up and going all out to make that a powerful day of resistance all across the country.
And as always we need your involvement to make this happen. Go to the web site:www.stopmassincarceration.net to find out what's happened and how you can get involved. And also to contribute money (and frequent flyer miles) to help make it possible for the people on the front lines of this fight to keep getting to where the struggle is sharpest and to function while we're there.
In struggle,
Carl
This message was released by the Stop Mass Incarceration Network on October 13, 2014. The "Stop Mass Incarceration: We're Better Than That!" Network is a project of the Alliance for Global Justice, a 501c3 tax-exempt organization. Tax-deductible contributions accepted, and checks should be made payable to the "Alliance for Global Justice", with "Stop Mass Incarceration Network" in the memo line and sent to the address above. Contributions also accepted online at www.stopmassincarceration.org/donate.html
