ST. LOUIS — Hundreds of people turned out Sunday night for an interfaith service where clergy urged a wider call for reforms in response to police violence against minorities.
Generational divides became apparent during the three hours that people spoke at Chaifetz Arena, at St. Louis University. At times, the crowd chanted calls for younger speakers — demanding instead to hear the people who have been on the streets of Ferguson since the Aug. 9 police shooting of Michael Brown.
“Let them speak!” many in the crowd yelled.
Activist and academic Cornel West tried to bridge the divide. To the older generations, he posed a question. “How do we ensure that we love the younger generation enough to heal their wounds … so they can speak to us with dignity?”
As for the younger people, West reminded them they aren’t the only ones who have struggled.
“Every generation of black people in this country have caught hell. Four hundred years of it,” he said.
The service brought together Jews, Christians, Muslims and nonbelievers. All races and backgrounds filled the stands. At times, they held hands in unity.
Speakers spoke in support of the struggle that has followed Brown’s death, and they urged more people to join in protest of the injustices the shooting has exposed.
“We must not be afraid to say our skin does not give us priority over one another,” said Imam Rauf Mahammed, one of several speakers at the event.
The Rev. Renita Lamkin urged the crowd to join the protesters who have staged demonstrations in the wakes of the fatal police shootings in Ferguson and south St. Louis.
Several times she brought audience members to their feet.
“It is time we stand side by side with them on the streets!” said Lamkin, a pastor at St. John AME Church in St. Charles.
A few times speakers were interrupted by people in the crowd wanting to hear from someone younger.
They applauded when local rapper Tef Poe took to the podium. He told them this isn’t their mother’s civil rights movement.
He also dismissed any notion that he’s leading the movement, which many have championed as leaderless.
“I ain’t nobody’s leader,” Poe said. “I am a black man living in an oppressive system.”
The noisy but peaceful gathering was part of the third day of a weekend of events called FergusonOctober. The events overlapped with continuing protests that have followed the fatal shootings of Brown and on Wednesday of Vonderrit Myers Jr. by a St. Louis police officer.
Late Sunday, police closed streets in and around the Shaw neighborhood as a crowd that grew to about 500 gathered near the site where Myers was shot in the 4200 block of Shaw Boulevard. The group included Myers’ parents.
Early in the day, 17 protesters were arrested after they massed at a QuikTrip not far from where Myers was shot after police say he opened fire at the officer.
About 50 of the 150 to 200 protesters who came to the convenience store briefly conducted a sit-in, blocking the entrance to the store.
St. Louis police in riot gear met the group, and warned protesters they faced arrest if they didn’t disperse. “This is an unlawful assembly,” police announced.
Protesters refused to budge.
“They say ‘move back,’ we say ‘fight back,’” they chanted.
Police formed a line, and advanced on protesters.
St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson was on the scene, directing officers.
Dotson, in a message sent via Twitter, said, “Protestors now throwing rocks at the police. Arrests have been made for continued illegal behavior.”
Later Sunday, Dotson said protesters were disrupting the business and those taken into custody had refused orders to leave.
He said that while protesters have a legal right to express their views, they don’t have a right to interfere with the operation of businesses. He also said the workers at the QuikTrip were frightened.
Some of the protesters were hit with pepper spray because they refused to comply with orders to disperse, the chief said.
Police spokeswoman Schron Jackson said those who were arrested were charged with unlawful assembly. She said there were no reports of injuries or property damage.
A QuikTrip on West Florissant Avenue near the site of the Brown shooting was the site of looting and was destroyed in a fire on Aug. 10 — the day after Brown, 18, was killed. The site of the QuikTrip became a staging area for protesters for several weeks until access was barred by police.
Protesters had been gathering throughout Saturday evening at the Shaw Market, next to a memorial to Myers.
After the QuikTrip action, protesters headed southwest on Vandeventer around 2 a.m., back toward the Shaw Market and the Myers memorial.
A contingent of about 100 reconvened there to debrief.
Targeting the QuikTrip worked, one of the protesters told the crowd through a bullhorn. It brought scores of police in riot gear to them.
“We had no intention of causing any harm to anyone tonight but we understood the symbolism” of targeting a QuikTrip, she said.
Meanwhile, St. Louis County police said they made no arrests during protests late Saturday and overnight outside the police department in Ferguson despite “a few occasions of assaultive behavior directed towards the officers assigned to the Ferguson PD detail.”
A statement from County Police Sgt. Brian Schellman added: “Officers had rocks and bottles thrown at them, and officers were spit at. None of those officers reported injuries. There were no reports of damage to property.”
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