Donald Trump, who had ascended to first place in the race for the Republican presidential nomination while promising to represent the “silent majority,” called O’Malley “a disgusting little weak, pathetic baby.”Īnyone familiar with American history can hear the echoes. As former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley fidgeted onstage, protesters chanted, “If I die in police custody, avenge my death! By any means necessary!” and “If I die in police custody, burn everything down!” When O’Malley responded, “Black lives matter, white lives matter, all lives matter,” the crowd booed loudly. Then, in July, activists with Black Lives Matter, a movement that had gained national attention after Brown’s death, disrupted speeches by two Democratic presidential candidates in Phoenix, Arizona. To avoid further violence, a game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox was postponed twice, then played in an empty stadium with police sirens audible in the distance. In the chaos that followed, 200 businesses were destroyed, 113 police officers were injured, and 486 people were arrested. In April 2015 another young African American man, Freddie Gray, died in police custody, in Baltimore. At the officers’ funerals, hundreds of police turned their backs on New York’s liberal mayor, Bill de Blasio.
In December, an African American man with a criminal record avenged Garner’s and Brown’s deaths by murdering two New York City police officers. Missouri’s governor said the city looked like a war zone. For close to two weeks, protesters battled police clad in military gear. That August, a white police officer, Darren Wilson, shot and killed an African American teenager, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri. In July 2014, Eric Garner, an African American man reportedly selling loose cigarettes illegally, was choked to death by a New York City policeman. Over roughly the past 18 months, the following events have transfixed the nation.
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