Artistic Alliance for Justice, California for Progress, and #BlackLivesMatter Los Angeles hold the Power In Action Justice March

Cedric the Entertainer, Eva Marcille, and Kendrick Sampson all came.

The sun sets, a crowd grows in the corner of a Shell gas station.

The crowd thickens, and people begin to chant: “This is what democracy looks like!”

The number of cameras here is truly stunning.

Fists raised, people chant: “This is what love looks like”

The CBS 2 #KCAL 9 News truck is here, covering the event.”

As the sun sets, it gets darker, and there are not as many street lights in this area, so it was tough to get clear shots at times.

The crowd crosses the street, then surges westward on Sunset.

People wear all manner of protest shirts, but this is the 3rd Colin Kaepernick jersey I’ve seen.

Kendrick leads many of the chants: “Black Lives, they matter HERE!”

At one point, the crowd starts chanting “No Justice, No Peace! No racist police!”, and Kendrick runs around with the megaphone. “Let’s just keep it at ‘No Justice, No Peace’. I really like that chant, but Cedric would rather us not use it. We gotta keep it positive.”

UNITE.

White people peer out of Sunset Bronson Studios while a Black security officer stands guard.

People in restaurants watch as the crowd passes them by.

Cedric The Entertainer stays in the front, and aside from the occasional requested selfie, people leave him alone. A couple cameras with mounted lights stay illuminating the front.

The crowd has decent self-awareness, pausing periodically so that the rest of the crowd can catch up, and people in green shirts keep people confined to the sidewalks.

EQUALITY

LOTS of parents with kids came out. Some pushed strollers. Some held them on shoulders. The lack of police presence made everything seem calmer.

Media presence, however, was overwhelming. I’d never seen this many people out. It was hard to tell who was from the news, who were independent, and who were paparazzi.

We stop at the CNN Los Angeles building, and a stage is set up. It all looks very official, it’s hard to tell whether CNN approved it or not.

Cedric The Entertainer takes the mic. “This is what Democracy looks like!” he repeats to the crowd, “you know, I never heard that one before tonight.”

Kendrick Sampson steps up and talks about police brutality. “Go to #CampaignZero’s website! Read the data for yourself. Learn about it.”

Sampson points out Samuel Sinyangwe in the crowd, who then begins passing out postcards for #CampaignZero. I go up to him, excited to finally meet him in person.

Leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement in Los Angeles take the stage, along with Lisa Hines, mother of #WakieshaWilson. Wakiesha was killed in an LAPD Metro Detention Ctr on Easter Sunday 2016.

“We stand in front of the CNN building to let the world know not everything that comes out of them is the truth.”

The music cranks. The DJ spins. People dance.

Behind everyone, Don Lemon talks on CNN about #PepeTheFrog. No one watches.

The party continues. People filter home.

Sam caught up with me as I was walking, and we ended up sharing ramen for dinner before he flew home. We talked about Campaign Zero, automation, and ineffective non-profits. Little did we know that less than a couple hours later, #ReginaldThomas would call 911 for medical assistance and then get killed by the police violence, the very thing we had been protesting.

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Benjamin Jancewicz is creating Vector Art | Patreon