In the weeks after 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., protesters gathered daily at the site of a burned-out convenience store.
About a block away, the empty lot of a boarded-up restaurant became the campsite for a group of young activists called the Lost Voices. During the protests, the group "invited all the people who can't come out every day and wanted to share the experience with us," says Lenard Smith.
One night, the Lost Voices was holding a "shut-it-down sleepover" when police raided the site, says Smith, who goes by the name Bud Cuzz. The police confiscated tents and everything else during the roust and even locked up a few people.
Now they gather in an office space across the street. A photo of Michael Brown, with the date of his death, is taped to the wall. There are other photos too, of unarmed people ā all of color ā who died during interactions with police.
[For more of this story, written by Cheryl Corley, go to http://www.npr.org/2014/10/24/...first-time-activists]
Comments (0)