Journey for Justice Runs into Hostile Counter-Protest, Keeps Marching
Hannah Baldwin, Columbia Missourian, December 3, 2014
About 50 activists marching from Ferguson to Jefferson City encountered a hostile counter-protest Wednesday in Rosebud.
About 200 people met the marchers as they reached Rosebud around noon, activists said. A display of fried chicken, a melon and a 40-ounce beer bottle had been placed in the street. A Confederate flag flew. Counter-protestors shouted racial epithets.
Rhea Willis of Velda City, Missouri, said she saw a boy she estimated to be 8 years old holding a sign that read, “Go home.”
Somebody shot the window out of the back of one of the buses traveling with the march, dubbed by the NAACP as the Journey for Justice. The outer pane of glass broke. The bullet landed in the windowsill, the driver said.
Two of the counter-protesters drove ahead of the Journey for Justice to meet them outside of Mount Sterling, a little less than 20 miles away, their stopping point for the night.
Doug McQuery of Bland, Missouri, wore a T-shirt stating his support for police officer Darren Wilson who shot and killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown in August. {snip}
McQuery said he thought it was fine if activists wanted to burn down their own town, but said he wasn’t going to stand for that elsewhere. He said he didn’t know the NAACP’s march would be peaceful.
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The marchers collapsed in exhaustion on the floor of the gym at Lincoln University on Wednesday night. They had walked 20 miles that day, about the same distance they’ve walked every day since Saturday, when the Journey for Justice started at the site of the shooting death of Michael Brown Jr., in Ferguson, according to previous Missourian reporting. About 50 activists marched Wednesday.
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