Protestors marching in downtown Greensboro

By Emily Bruzzo, News Editor

Published in print Dec 3, 2014.

Protests erupted across the U.S. last Monday after a St. Louis County grand jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson, a white police officer charged with the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed, black 18-year-old robbery suspect.

Ferguson, Mo., the place where it all started three months ago, broke out in chaos after the verdict was announced.

The nation watched in horror as crowds took to the streets, setting several buildings on fire, looting stores and threatening law enforcement authorities, who The New York Times reported deployed smoke and gas in an attempt to suppress the violence.

Gov. Jay Nixon had declared a state of emergency and called up the Missouri National Guard before the verdict, citing the intense protests that occurred after the initial shooting in August as grounds for the preemptive decision.

As rallies began around the country in solidarity with the citizens of Ferguson, Greensboro community members came together to start their own protest.

Scott Trent, an organizer for the Stop Mass Incarceration Network- Greensboro chapter, one of several social advocacy groups to help organize the rally, said in a phone interview last week there were roughly 400 people in attendance— a third to a half of them university students.

“The students really turned out,” Trent said. “It was amazing.”

The rally, which lasted for nearly three hours, began in front of the International  Civil Rights Center & Museum, with protestors marching to the new police station and eventually making their way to the old station, where they took over the steps.

Trent said the atmosphere was charged, and though order was maintained, the crowd was certainly outraged.

“It was very defiant. People were very angry. One sentiment that I heard expressed quite a bit was that people were not surprised, per se, that this was the way it went down,” Trent said.

“Even though people weren’t surprised,” he continued, “it was just total outrage. It was like: ‘We’re not taking this again.’”’

“You’d hear people saying things like: ‘How can I raise my child in this,’” Trent said.

Trent, an activist against police brutality and mass incarceration since the ‘90s, believes Ferguson incited a great deal of change for the social cause.

Trent cited a recent CNN poll, which says 23 percent of whites felt Wilson should have been charged with murder and 54 percent of nonwhites thought the same.

Trent acknowledges 23 percent may appear to be a small number, but he argues that the statistic, in the context of the past police brutality movement in the U.S., shows a surprising leap in support from white Americans.

Trent asserts he saw this increased support at the rally, saying, “You kinda get used to seeing the usual suspects, which is great. You see the same people.”

“But there were so many people that were there that night,” Trent continued, “there were people I was looking forward to seeing and I didn’t even see because there were just too many people there.”

“All kinds of people showed up,” he continued, “which really kinda gives a lie to this racial divide that keeps being mentioned.”

As to why he thinks people have been more energized about police brutality, Trent argues students have been a powerful force for the social movement’s outcry.

“I have never seen students step up in the way students have about the Mike Brown killing,” Trent asserted.

“Each generation,” he later said, “has its own way of seeing things, its own creativity, its own language, its own vibe. And so what [students] are bringing to it, is a whole new thing. It’s such a wonderful thing.”

However, Trent believes the true catalyst fueling the newfound support of the social cause is the people of Ferguson.

“Anyone who tries to minimize the role of the people of Ferguson who stood up from day one…is really missing the point…when people see that it means something to them.”

Regardless of the increased activism against police brutality, Trent says there is still the chance support will dwindle after some time has passed.

“That’s why it really is on conscious forces that are out there, like organizations that are looking past and seeing what could be and what sort of things need to happen,” Trent said.