Young Black activists saw traditional civil rights leadership as co-opting their movement

Evidence

Speakers were set for the program (including civil rights leaders, members of the families, and, of course, Sharpton himself), but young organizers abruptly walked onstage and demanded to be heard. They came to the march to protest police violence and racism, and saw instead a VIP section, which confirmed for them that this was just a showcase for a “celebrity activist” who wanted to hijack a youth-led movement. Young people around the stage shouted, “Let them speak….If we don’t get it, shut it down.” Erika Totten from Alexandria, Virginia, grabbed the microphone and said, “We have been out in Ferguson and D.C. and New York, and we started this uprising.” Johnetta Elzie, a protester from Ferguson, recounted the then-127-day-long struggle in her city, and how she had been shot by rubber bullets and tear-gassed nine times. “This movement was started by the young people. We started this. There should be young people all over this stage.” — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 490

Categorization

• XREF: This generational split prefigures what Glaude argues throughout the book about the failure of the old civil-rights establishment.