March for Justice: End US State Terrorism Against People of Color

Faces familiar and not so familiar on signs at a protest: Oscar Grant, Salvador Allende, Victor Jara, Che Guevara, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Aiyana Stanley Jones, Darrien Hunt.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, Oscar Grant's photo is a familiar one. Grant was murdered by a BART police officer who served only two years for involuntary manslaughter.

Faces less recognizable to students perhaps were those of Salvador Allende, the Chilean president who was the target of a CIA coup, and Victor Jara, an activist who was killed during Chile's military takeover. Che Guevara, a figure prominent in the Cuban revolution, was executed in 1967. His image has become an icon of leftist radicalism and anti-imperialism. Members of Youth Alliance for Justice, who sponsored the rally, were most familiar with the names Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner as they have been in recent news, men whose only crime was being young and black.

All the murdered people above were killed due to racism or human rights violations. Student speakers asked, "Why should the US government be above the law?" They said the US government should join 122 other countries and belong to the UN's International Criminal Court. In addition they called for an end to police violence against people of color.