The ‘leaderless’ movement is being propelled by the efforts of women of color.

The movement challenging the criminal justice system's treatment of black people continues to build this week. On Monday morning, Bay Area organizers blockaded entrances to Oakland Police Department headquarters and brought traffic to a standstill on nearby Interstate 880.

A Gary native whose son was fatally shot by police last month in Tennessee was among more than three dozen people who rallied Sunday outside Hammond City Hall to protest racial and social injustice.

Wednesday night, a grand jury in New York City refused to indict police officers in the killing of Eric Garner, a man who died after officers used a prohibited choke hold on him. The decision set off protests across the country.

Long troubled and tenuous, the relationship between police departments and African-American communities is now toxic, and its repercussions may be most visible in the wounded eyes of black children. Since Brown’s death in August, scores of parents have brought their kids, some barely out of kindergarten, to protests nationwide and sparking discussions with them about racial profiling, police brutality, and the sad, but necessary refrain that “Black Lives Matter.”