Sit-ins, die-ins, blockades in U.S. cities

They're preparing the signs. Lining up the locations. Getting
ready to shut down traffic once again.
Protests in the growing movement against police brutality
are on tap in dozens of communities across the nation on
Friday, with more planned over the weekend.
On Thursday, marchers in Dallas, Boston, Chicago and
Manhattan screamed for justice for Eric Garner and
others killed, protesters say, without cause by police.
The protests erupted in response to the decision Wednesday
by a New York grand jury not to charge police Officer
Daniel Pantaleo in Garner's death after his arrest, which
was captured on cell-phone video.
They came a week after another decision not to indict by a
grand jury in St. Louis County, Missouri, examining the
death of African-American teenager Michael Brown by a
white police officer.
In New York, protesters angry over the Garner decision
blocked the Holland Tunnel connecting Manhattan with
New Jersey, stopped traffic on the Broadway and
clogged West Side Highway in Manhattan near 10th
Street, CNN affiliate WABC reported.
"I'm out here because the system has failed us too many
times," Courtney Wicker, a New York protester, told
CNN affiliate NY1. "It makes me feel like there's no
justice."
Dozens sat down in an intersection, blocking traffic. Others
patiently waited as police almost gently put them in plastic
handcuffs and walked them off the streets.
In New York, 219 people were arrested, police said.
Police in Dallas and Massachusetts reported a handful of
arrests.
Among the motorists stuck in New York protest traffic was
Garner's mother, Gwen Carr.
"I was so thrilled, so thrilled, even to be held up in
traffic," she said on CNN's "New Day."
"They were standing for my son. I thank them so very
much," she said.
Growing movement
The demand for change in how law enforcement deals with
minorities has been broad, with hundreds of protests
involving untold thousands of demonstrators from coast to
coast, in towns both large and small.
"It's happening in every city, every town. It's happening
here in Pittsburgh," Julia Johnson told CNN affiliate
WPXI.
In many ways, it appears to be based on the Occupy Wall
Street movement, which generated protests in New York
and elsewhere in 2011 over inequality, corporate influence
and other issues.
The largely leaderless and underground movement is using
social media to organize protests, which have morphed from
a wide-ranging agenda to a tight focus on the issue of
police violence against black men.
In New York, protest signs reading "Racism kills" and
"The whole damn system is guilty as hell," told of protesters'
frustrations.
A young white marcher said "the criminalization of black
youth in America needs to end."
"It's time that we say we're fed up and this needs to
change," the marcher said.
The show of solidarity touched Cornell Belcher, a
Democratic pollster, who is African-American. He was
feeling down after the Staten Island grand jury declined to
press charges.
"After the decision, I think some of us were so fallen," he
said, making a gesture of his chest caving in. "But then,
when you see this diverse group of people sort of gathering
together and saying this is fundamentally unfair and taking
to the streets, it sort of reconfirms our faith in our society,
in our values," he told CNN's Anderson Cooper late
Thursday.
Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Oakland
In Boston, a diverse crowd turned the annual Christmas
tree lighting into its protest late Thursday.
"Black lives matter!" protesters chanted. "We can't
breathe!"
They stopped a train line and blocked nearby highways.
In Oakland, California, protesters marched to the
Fruitvale rail station, where on New Year's Day 2009, a
white officer killed Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old unarmed
black man.
In Chicago, a small group of protesters stood in tense
stalemate with police, who tried to keep them from blocking
a street.
Protesters stopped a line of train service, and they blocked
the Massachusetts Turnpike and Interstate 93. State
troopers went in to escort them out. Authorities detained
several people, CNN affiliate WCVB reported.
Video from Dallas showed a few dozen protesters blocking
an interstate late Thursday.
They were quickly surrounded by squad cars, some were
arrested.
1960s style methods
In many respects, the mostly peaceful protests shared many
similarities with the protests of the Civil Rights era --
marches, signs, civil disobedience.
One Asian-American protester felt inspired by the 1960s
marches, but said she believes that struggle shows change
will take a long time.
"If you think about the civil rights movement, it took 10
years for anything to happen between the protests and the
boycotts of the buses to the actual Civil Rights Act," she
said.
Author and CNN commentator Michaela Angela Davis
was marching in a mixed crowd of mostly white students
chanting "black lives matter."
The blocked streets didn't bother her so much. It's
democracy, she said.
"I feel like we are seeing the American project at work. It
is messy; it is difficult."