Reuters - In a former union hall in downtown St. Louis, about 100 activists formed a rough circle and, at the instruction of organizer Michael McPhearson, crossed the room wading through a crowd of people going the opposite way.
“How hard was that? How much harder will it be after the grand jury comes back?” McPhearson, executive director of activist group Veterans for Peace, asked the group, which ranged from young black college students to bearded white retirees.
Police around the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri, are preparing for large protests when a grand jury decides whether to indict the white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black teen in August, and so are activists.
Several groups from across the United States, and even from abroad, are preparing to take to the streets in actions of nonviolent civil disobedience, particularly if the grand jury finds no criminal trial is warranted.
The memory of the violent clashes that followed the Aug. 9 shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown burns brightly in the minds of both protesters and law enforcement, especially after heavy criticism directed at the Ferguson police department for its handling of the situation. A gas station was burned, stores were looted and police fired tear gas and pointed automatic weapons at demonstrators.
In instructional sessions over the past week, activists including McPhearson, of St. Louis, have shown potential demonstrators how to link arms and remain calm when police clad in riot gear pound batons on the ground and to fashion gas masks from empty soda bottles.
“We are in a rebellion at the moment,” said Reverend Osagyego Sekou, an activist from Boston. “That means breaking police lines, non-compliance with police orders. It is confrontational but not violent.”
He urged the group of potential protesters to try to focus their minds on “deep, abiding love” to remain calm during demonstrations.
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