Activism is contagious. Just one day after medical-school students across the nation staged die-ins as a way to bring attention to institutional racism in health care, congressional staffers on Capitol Hill walked out of their offices Thursday afternoon to protest the lack of indictments in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner killings by police officers.
“The walkout was led by Senate chaplain Barry Black,” NBC News reported. “Staffers stood on the steps of the Capitol holding their hands up.”
Some staffers described how they work on legislation to improve police conduct and to rid the justice system of biases that criminalize African-American and Hispanic men, so they’re taking the recent killings of unarmed black men particularly hard.
“Democrats and Republicans across the country are incredibly frustrated by what happened in Ferguson, Staten Island and elsewhere, and this protest reflects the mistrust they have in the integrity of the criminal-justice system,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said in a statement.
“These congressional staffers put in incredibly long hours, nights and weekends working to pass legislation to help people live better lives, so I fully support them taking a few moments today to pray with the Senate chaplain for Congress to take action to ensure that all Americans are treated equally before the law,” Cummings continued.
Read more at NBC News.