Candlelight vigil for justice held in Washington, DC

People light candles along 16th Street in Washington, DC as part of protests against grand juries not indicting white police officers who killed unarmed black men.

Members of Washington’s faith communities stretched their candlelight vigil from the White House to the Maryland state line in Silver Spring on Friday evening.

Members of nearly 30 local churches and community organizations placed thousands of luminarias on the road’s east side.

The demonstration, dubbed as the “Vigil for Justice: People of Faith Lighting the Way”, drew a large number of people. Some were carrying placards bearing the message “Black Lives Matter”.

Organizers called the event a “vigil of the faith community standing together in love and light for justice.”

The move came the night before a planned march on the US capital which is going to be led by the families of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice.

“This march is one of many demonstrations to show Congress, the country and the world that we will not stand down until systemic change, accountability and justice in cases of police misconduct are served,” said Cornell William Brooks, the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), an African American civil rights organization in the US.

On Thursday, hundreds of activists in New York City protested the December 3 grand jury ruling in the chokehold killing of Eric Garner on July 17.

The protesters staged “die-ins” to simulate being dead inside Grand Central Station and Saks department store on Fifth Avenue. They held signs bearing messages such as “I can’t breathe”- a reference to Garner’s last words.

Nationwide demonstrations erupted last month when a Missouri grand jury declined to indict a former Ferguson policeman who shot dead Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager. The protests intensified last week after the grand jury ruling in Garner’s case.

Large demonstrations against police brutality, dubbed the “Week of Outrage”, are planned on Saturday in major US cities.