ST. LOUIS Paris Jackson shuffled onto the bus in Bronzeville before dawn Saturday, pulled her denim jacket tight around her and then slept most of the 300-mile trip to St. Louis.
As her fellow passengers chatted about the planned anti-police brutality rally at their destination, Jackson, 23, stayed quiet-until she began to share her own experiences with Chicago police.
They target her and her friends because they are black, she said, like the bouncers at Boystown clubs who won't let them in. She and her friends tell story after story of police targeting them on sidewalks late at night while ignoring groups of white loiterers; police roughing them up for nothing but a dirty look, police slamming one girl so hard against the ground that, years later, she still has back problems. Among friends, they call police the "CPDK"-Chicago Police Department Killers.
"They expect you to fall at their feet," said Lonzo Ward, 25. "You're just an officer. You're not God."
And so, on the spur of the moment, Jackson got on the bus to St. Louis to send a message: "Y'all not going to kill me. I'm not going to be the next Michael Brown."
Jackson was on one of the buses the AFL-CIO sponsored for Chicagoans who wanted to participate in a march during Ferguson October, a four-day "weekend of resistance" to protest police brutality and commemorate the two months since Michael Brown was killed.
Brown's death at the hands of police in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson sparked days of protest, occasionally violent, and the use of tear gas and rubber bullets by police drew attention across the country.
"I really cannot tell you what made this particular incident [resonate]," said Jeffrey Baker, 42, an Auburn Gresham community activist planning to run for 21st Ward alderman. "I have heard this story a thousand times. ... We have a horrible, horrible relationship between the community and the police."
Other Chicagoans at the St. Louis rally characterized that relationship as dysfunctional at best and toxic at worst.
"I have two little brothers and countless male cousins," said Khalisha Pullen, 22, who grew up in West Garfield Park. "The police antagonize us all of the time. They see us as all criminals."
Representatives from the Chicago Police Department were not immediately available for comment.
The group from the AFL-CIO buses donned yellow T-shirts and joined the march with about 3,000 people from around the country. (Organizers had expected at least double that.)
After the march through downtown
St. Louis ended in Kiener Plaza, the Chicago group dispersed among the crowd of anti-violence activists, clergy members, labor unionists, self-proclaimed socialists, advocates for Palestine, anti-Wal-Mart protesters, "V for Vendetta" Guy Fawkes mask-wearers, college students, senior citizens and small children.
The afternoon rally was peaceful, with a handful of police-in regular uniforms, rather than the riot gear Ferguson made famous-hanging around the fringes.
"I felt so empowered," said Diamond A. Whaley, a 20-year-old Austin resident. "I didn't feel alone. ... I felt that it was my responsibility to stand up and be part of the movement in my generation, no matter how afraid I am of being seen."
A few hours later, the Chicago contingent regrouped and talked about why their city hasn't seen the kind of activism that Ferguson has fostered.
Perhaps it's because incidences of police violence in Chicago are underreported, said Olivia Perlow, an assistant professor of sociology at Northeastern Illinois University who marched Saturday.
"Maybe Ferguson is unique in their organizing strategies," she said. "Chicago is very divided. Spatially, we're segregated. We're divided by class, we're absolutely divided racially."
Or maybe it's a matter of temperament, said Sean Porter, 21.
"The people [in St. Louis were] really calm," he said on the bus back to Chicago on Saturday afternoon. "Chicago, they're uptight. They're bangy."
"Bangy means wild," volunteered his friend, Paris Jackson.
Hours later, late Saturday night, Jackson practically jumped out of her seat in excitement when the Willis Tower came into view.
"Chicago, baby! I see her!" she said. "Yes, I love her."