As marchers in the Shaw neighborhood trudged past cinders of American flags burned to protest another shooting of a black youth by a white cop, someone shouted a question that was on everyone’s mind.
“Where the hell are we going?”
A protester near the front of the pack bellowed back, “We’re just walking.”
At the end of the FergusonOctober weekend that drew thousands of protesters to events across the area, some local activists are wondering where they go from here.
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The Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of the Washington-based social justice group Sojourners, who attended the weekend’s protests, first felt the pull of Ferguson while overseas.
“I was in South Africa on Aug. 9 when Michael Brown was shot and killed, and his name came up in every single interview I did there,” Wallis, 66, said. “This is an international story, a parable of Ferguson, if you will.”
On Monday, Wallis was among dozens of people arrested in Ferguson near the police station. The experience was nothing new to him. He said he had been arrested 23 times, from South Africa to Chicago, at protests over causes ranging from homelessness to racial justice.
Wallis said a certain etiquette was required of outsiders who joined protests in other cities, one that is not always obeyed.
“As an outsider, this was not my agenda, it was theirs (the Ferguson protesters’). When you come from outside, you listen very carefully and humbly to the local leaders,” he said.