Look: Trayvon Martin Support Rallies Rock — And Gridlock — The Nation (Photos)

Less than 24 hours after a six-woman jury in Sanford, Florida found George Zimmerman “not guilty” in last year’s murder of 17-year old Trayvon Martin, thousands across the nation took to the streets in angry, sad, and mostly entirely peaceful, non-violent rallies to show support for Trayvon Martin, his grieving family, and to send a strong message, as some signs read, that “this isn’t over yet!”

Other signs read, “We are all Trayvon Martin,” “The whole damn system is guilty,” and “Justice for Trayvon!”

New York City had by far the largest rallies, with protestors shutting down the streets, as did protests in Los Angeles.

NYC protestors spent much of the afternoon and early evening in Union Square on 14th Street, later walking up to 34th Street to rally at Herald Square, then marching up to Times Square at 42nd street, and ultimately, Harlem, sixty blocks north — all in blistering 85-90 degree weather.

“Lawmakers, members of the clergy and demonstrators who assembled in parks and squares on a hot July day described the verdict by the six-person jury as evidence of a persistent racism that afflicts the nation five years after it elected its first African-American president,” the New York Times reports:

“Trayvon Benjamin Martin is dead because he and other black boys and men like him are seen not as a person but a problem,” the Rev. Dr. Raphael G. Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, told a congregation once led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. Warnock noted that the verdict came less than a month after the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to void a provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. “The last few weeks have been pivotal to the consciousness of black America,” he said in an interview after services. “Black men have been stigmatized.”

There were a few reports of violence, mostly from Oakland, and Los Angeles, where the police decided to shoot rubber bullets into the crowd. In New York City, reports state around 20 people have been arrested related to the protests, although no reasons have been reported yet.

Here, photos from across the nation tell a story of unity and a country embattled by racism — and willing to stand for justice and equality.

[View the story “Trayvon Martin Support Rallies Rock — And Gridlock — The Nation After ‘Not Guilty’ Verdict” on Storify]

Image, top, by Socialist Worker, via Twitter