PRINCETON PROTESTS THE FERGUSON GRAND JURY DECISION: A PHOTO ESSAY

On Monday, over 300 Princeton students gathered to protest the Ferguson grand jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson, the police officer who fatally shot 18 year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9th.

The Stripes was on the ground, covering the action. Below is a collection of our best shots from the protest, some accompanied by commentary from students who participated.

A completed protest sign awaits a carrier.A student finishes a protest sign including the fact, "An unarmed black person is killed every 28 hours in the U.S."
“On that night, we screamed with so much passion and volume that black lives matter. I held my sign up as high as I could. We are desperately trying to convince the world that this is true. We are trying to scream loud enough to drown out people's implicit biases, explicit hatred and ignorance, and the messages that media and institutions send to us about black people. It’s exhausting. It's an uphill battle. It's disheartening when it feels like no one hears us or cares. But it's also encouraging when people do. It's encouraging when people join the fight for justice and stand alongside us in solidarity. Most of all, it's worth the struggle because I really believe we are going to leave this nation and this world better than we found it if we don't give up.” – Briana Payton, ‘17"It is a sad day and age in America. There is no gray area. When the hands are up, you do not shoot. I thought this was 2014." – Mohamed Shalan, '17
Students head toward Prospect Street as the protest commences.As the protest comes to a close, students gather on the steps of Robertson Hall.
"I bawled at least three times during the protest. Every time we walked past an eating club and there was a line of seemingly unfazed students going along with their social lives in the face of so much injustice, I felt so much anger boil up that I just broke down." - Hannah Rosenthal, '15Two students sit outside an eating club, watching the protesters.
After a brief run through up campus, protesters return to Prospect Street.At its height, the protest was 300 students strong, streaming down the full length of Prospect Street.
Two students hold complimentary protest signs.Students continue chanting and waving protest signs as the last of the crowd assembles.“No matter what I achieve nothing can ever protect me from the harsh realities of racism. I can have all the degrees from all the universities, but at the end of the day I'm still black, and I'm still ‘one of them.’” – Danielle Allen, ‘16, pictured left. “There are still spaces around the world where bodies--black bodies, low-income bodies, trans bodies, politically deviant bodies--can be brutalized by the State, where systems of oppression paint these peoples as deserving of the censorship and policing they receive, or as not worth enough to matter. I will never know what exactly happened between Michael Brown and Darren Wilson, but I am distraught, furious, and fearful because I do not understand why it took 12 shots fired and 6 shots hitting his target for the shooting to stop, why there was not an indictment, why in the U.S.A. black children's bodies are subject to excessive force and criminalization at the hands of our justice system. As saddened as I am…the color of my skin does not reduce my life expectancy and make me fear for my life at the hands of the law when I walk outside in this country. Please consider the words of activists who suffer this form of oppression before you consider my own.” – Sol Taubin, ‘16, pictured center. “I live grappling with the fact that America is filled with oppression for many disempowered peoples, especially for Black people, and that many "Americans" silently stand by this oppression.” – Yoselin Gramajo, ‘16, pictured right.
All photos by Aisha Oxley ’16 for The Stripes