Thousands March For Black Women And Racial Justice In D.C., Around The Country
“Trust black women!”
“Who do you serve? Who do you protect?”
“Puerto Rico is part of America!”
On Saturday, chants rang out as thousands flooded the streets in Washington, D.C. and rallied at 15 sister marches across the country, demanding an end to race-based discrimination and violence. The two separate but closely-coordinated events, the March for Black Women (M4BW) and the March for Racial Justice (M4RJ) started at parks near the Capitol before converging to march together to the Department of Justice before descending on the mall for a rally.
The M4RJ was organized by a coalition of racial justice activists and organizations in response to the fatal police shooting of Philando Castile, an unarmed black Minnesota man whose girlfriend streamed the aftermath on Facebook. Since then, racial incidents have continued to dominate the national debate, including the Charlottesville terrorist attack and Colin Kaepernick’s protest of systemic racism and police shootings of young black men—a topic recently revived by Trump’s slew of derogatory tweets aimed at the NFL and at outspoken black athletes. . .