Jim Crow? Hell no!

RIPPLES OF protest continued across the country as communities and students link local cases of police brutality and racist violence to the February 26 murder of Trayvon Martin by vigilante George Zimmerman in Sanford, Fla.

In Baltimore, at least 1,800 people marched from McKeldin Square in the Inner Harbor, previously the domain of a two-month-long Occupy encampment, to police headquarters and then on to City Hall. The protesters demanded Zimmerman's arrest as well as a statement from Baltimore Mayor Rawlings-Blake. For the young participants, this was one of the largest civil rights demonstrations in living memory.

The young, energetic and emotionally charged crowd was largely organized by the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and turned out through liberal/left-leaning Christian congregations.

A recurring theme throughout the rally was that Trayvon Martin's murder is only the tip of the iceberg of an epidemic of abuses relating to police brutality, racist violence, racial profiling, stop-and-frisk searches and systemic inequality.

One hopeful sign was the large number of people who only recently moved towards activism; another was the participation of non-African American people from the Occupy movement, who realize the success of Occupy will hinge on how effectively it consciously confronts racism and other forms of oppression.

In Washington, D.C., hundreds of students and community members took to the streets on April 7 to march for justice for Trayvon Martin.

Billed as the "D.C. Million Hoodies March," the event was called for and organized by a group of Howard University students. At its height, more than 300 people participated, including students from nearby American University and George Mason University, members of the NAACP, and activists from Occupy D.C. and the Occupy D.C. Criminal Injustice Committee.

The multiracial crowd was three-quarters African American and marched from Malcolm X Park on the border of the U Street and Columbia Heights neighborhoods to Freedom Plaza, where one of two Occupy D.C. encampments is ongoing.

The march was loud and spirited, with chants such as "Trayvon Martin, Emmett Till, how many more youth will they kill?" and "They say Jim Crow, we say hell no!" Marshals also led the crowd in call-and-response chants of "We won't rest--until you arrest! And even then--we won't rest!"

Other signs and banners connected Martin's case to that of Shaima Alawadi, an Iraqi woman murdered in her California home, and Troy Davis, the Georgia inmate executed last year despite proof of his innocence.

The main demand of the march was for the arrest and prosecution of George Zimmerman, but organizers were quick to point out that Zimmerman merely reflects a racist status quo that criminalizes Black people and treats their lives as expendable. The lead banner of the march stated: "More than an arrest--we want justice."

"An arrest is not justice," noted Corryn Freeman, a Howard student and one of the organizers of the march. "It is addressing one symptom of a much larger, more systematic problem. We have flawed institutions. The media is flawed along with the Sanford Police Department, along with Florida local and state governments. This case exposed all of these injustices."

Marchers were buoyed by a great deal of positive reaction from people on the streets and many honks of support from passing cars. One young girl who was waiting for the bus with her mother began jumping up and down as the march passed, chanting at the top of her lungs, "No more Zimmermans! No more Zimmermans!"

This action was the largest rally for Trayvon in D.C. since a rally two weeks ago brought out more than 2,000 people to the steps of the Wilson Building, the seat of D.C.'s government, directly across Pennsylvania Avenue from Freedom Plaza. Since that rally, numerous smaller rallies and vigils have been held around the city and on college campuses such as American University and the University of Maryland-College Park.

"I hope the march shows the Martin family that there is a global movement that is in solidarity with Trayvon Martin and awakens citizens to the perpetual and structural violence against people of color," said Cale Holmes, a high school student from Virginia who participated in the march.

"I felt like it was important for us to continue keeping this issue at the forefront of our consciousness," said Freeman, the Howard student and organizer, of why she decided to organize the action. "I think it is important that the media knows that this isn't something that will be quietly swept under the rug."

One challenge facing organizers now is how to knit these disparate forces together into a coherent and powerful movement that can build momentum not just for Trayvon Martin, but also for local victims of racist and police violence. D.C. has its own list of victims of recent racist police violence, including 25-year-old Trey Joyner, shot in the back by Park Police; DeOnte Rawlings, a 14-year-old shot in the back of the head by DC police; and many others, such as Emmanuel Okutuga and Raphael Briscoe.

In Denton, Texas, about 300 University of North Texas (UNT) students and community members rallied April 1 on the UNT campus and marched to the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center. Marches of this size are not just exceptional in Denton--they're unheard of.

Members from the Denton chapter of the NAACP, the Southeast Denton Neighborhood group and the Denton branch of the International Socialist Organization were in attendance.

Before the march, a brief memorial was held for Trayvon Martin. The mostly Black crowd wore hoodies throughout the three-mile march, despite the hot weather. Popular chants included "I have a hoodie--are you gonna shoot me?" and "No justice, no peace! These are our streets!" During the march, a large number of people carried copies of Socialist Worker as placards.

When marchers arrived at the recreation center, they held a rally where students and community members shared their thoughts and feelings about the tragedy of Martin's murder. UNT student Mario Ovalle spoke passionately about the racist justice system and connected Martin's murder to the larger capitalist system that fosters and exploits racism for its own benefit.

Several speakers made it clear that this march was not the end but rather the beginning of a revitalized movement against a justice system and larger social system shot through with racism.

In West Lafayette, Ind., more than 300 protesters--Black, white, Muslim, young and old--marched in memory of Trayvon Martin at Purdue University in late March. The rally, organized by Purdue's Black Student Union, was held in solidarity with other Million Hoodie marches across the country.

The crowd silently marched through campus to draw attention to the cause. "Our hope is for justice," explained Sadie Harper-Scott, president of the Lafayette/West Lafayette NAACP. "Trayvon isn't the first person to suffer this sort of fate, and he might not be the last. But people being aware and taking actions can hopefully prevent it."

Participants in the rally also carried signs of remembrance for Rekia Boyd, an African American woman murdered last week by Chicago police last month, and Shaima Alawadi, an Iraqi woman beaten to death in San Diego last week by killers who left a note telling her to go "home" and calling her a terrorist.

Purdue graduate students April Burke and Jubin Rahatzad and Purdue Black Cultural Center program coordinator Jolivette Anderson-Douoning also energized the large crowd by announcing the formation of a new Purdue Anti-Racist Coalition. The idea for the coalition was born on campus recently when anonymous attackers defaced the portrait of former Purdue professor Cornell A. Bell.

Bell had been a leading African American faculty member at Purdue and mentor to dozens of African American students. The attack took place in the hallway of the Purdue College of Business. Purdue administrators were slow to respond to the incident. An angry forum was held in its aftermath in which numerous African American students testified to feeling intimidated and isolated on a majority-white campus.

The act of discrimination has given rise to outrage on campus and has generated intense discussion about discrimination at Purdue and in the surrounding community. The Trayvon Martin murder has further galvanized students and campus activists to work together. The Anti-Racist Coalition was initiated by members of Occupy Purdue, which has allied itself with Purdue Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and come out in support of Palestinian self-determination.

Purdue has a terrible history of under-representing racial minorities and losing minority staff and students. It also has shown signs of Islamophobia and prejudice against Palestinians.

Campus police and the Student Affairs Office on campus last week disrupted a mock "checkpoint" organized by the campus SJP chapter. Students were told to put away obviously fake cardboard "guns" used to demonstrate how Israeli soldiers harass and intimidate Palestinians at checkpoints in occupied Palestine. The same Student Affairs Office and campus police routinely allow students to use fake guns to conduct simulated war games like "Zombie" on campus. The difference is that SJP fake guns were wielded by non-white students to demonstrate how racism works.

The incidents of racism and discrimination have given fresh motivation to students and citizens within the Lafayette and West Lafayette community. People of all colors, creeds, sexes and sexual orientations are now standing in solidarity against discrimination and took a step toward demanding justice for victims of inequality.

In Madison, Wis., demonstrators rallied April 7 to demand justice for the murders of Trayvon Martin and Bo Morrison, a 20-year-old unarmed Black man from Slinger, Wis., who was killed by white homeowner Adam Kind in the morning hours of March 3.

The multiracial crowd of more than 200 people gathered for a march and two-hour speak-out, which included Morrison's sister Kayla, Madison Urban League chapter president Kaleem Caire, and Progressive magazine editor Matt Rothschild. Protesters marched around the Capitol Square, chanting "End the new Jim Crow, justice for Trayvon and Bo!"

Morrison had taken refuge Kind's porch to avoid being caught for underage drinking when police broke up the party he had been attending at a friend's house up the street. Kind claimed self-defense as justification for the murder, and the sheriff's office has declined to press charges.

The rally was called by Alexia Ware, a young Black woman motivated to do something by Trayvon Martin's murder. "What happened deeply troubled me, and I didn't want to sit by and not do anything," said Ware.

Without any previous experience as an activist, Ware began by reaching out to the International Socialist Organization, which had organized a March 27 rally at UW-Madison for the same cause.

Several of the speakers and many homemade signs demanded the repeal of Wisconsin's Castle Doctrine, a state law analogous to Florida's Stand Your Ground law, which protects Morrison's killer from prosecution. Morrison's mother Lauri echoed the call to repeal the Castle Doctrine and called the killing of her son and Trayvon Martin "cold-blooded murder."

Many rally participants put the murders in the broader context of systematic racism directed at Blacks in the United States. "If a white kid was walking down the street [in Florida] that day, he'd still be alive," said Madison resident Barret Locatelli. "As a Black man, I've got to worry about walking down the street."

There were also calls for multiracial unity to build a movement that can successfully challenge future incidents of racist violence. "You can never challenge your own exploitation if you don't challenge the exploitation of others," said Dan Suárez of the International Socialist Organization during a speech to the crowd. "That's a lesson we need to remember as we move forward."