Hundreds Rally Again in Response to Zimmerman Verdict

Hundreds of protesters gathered for a second consecutive day Monday at the intersection of Newark's Broad and Market streets to protest the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the murder of Trayvon Martin, with speakers demanding that President Barack Obama direct Attorney General Eric Holder to bring federal civil rights charges against the 29-year-old Florida resident.  

“We didn’t elect a black president to the White House just to have a black president in the White House,” Lawrence Hamm, president of the People’s Organization for Progress (POP), told a crowd of at least 250 -- about the same size as a virtually identical rally held at the same place Sunday. "We need him to do something." 

Hamm urged the crowd to take concrete action by writing Obama at the White House to demand the civil rights investigation.

“I love marching. I’m gonna march till the day I die. But marching is not enough,” Hamm said.

Speakers also urged the crowd to initiate economic boycotts in order to draw attention to the case, in which Zimmerman, a member of a neighborhood watch group, shot and killed Martin, 17, an unarmed African-American teenager, in February 2012.  Hamm suggested boycotting Walt Disney World in Florida until the company’s CEO joined in the call for a federal civil rights investigation into Zimmerman.

Speakers also hinted there may be more rallies to come.

“Can we come out here every day at 5 o’clock until we get justice?” Sharif Amenhotep, of the New Black Panther Party, shouted to the crowd.

Individual POP marchers, meanwhile, repeatedly chanted “Zimmerman -- in jail!,” prompting others nearby to answer “Zimmerman!” 

Monday’s rally and march resulted from a groundswell of public interest, said Bashir Akinyele, of the Newark Anti Violence Coalition, which took a more hands-on role in pulling together the march Sunday. That first rally came the day after a jury acquitted Zimmerman of murder and manslaughter charges Saturday.

“We have to be consistent in our outrage. We can’t do it for one day and then forget about it,” Akinyele, standing in the center of a circle of protesters, said under a sweltering afternoon sun Monday. “We show that by shutting down the busiest intersection in the state of New Jersey.”

Protesters gathered at around 5 pm Monday, rush hour, having a much larger effect on the city’s traffic than Sunday afternoon’s demonstration. Vehicles were backed up for several blocks on Mulberry and other streets feeding into the intersection, which was closed off by Newark police in patrol cars, on motorcycles and on horseback.

The rally, which lasted for nearly three hours, involved speakers addressing a crowd encircling the intersection. Towards the end of the demonstration, the crowd -- escorted as they were Sunday by Newark police -- marched south on Broad, turned around near city hall and headed back to the intersection for a final round of speeches.