ST. LOUIS - Across the country on Monday, people walked out of their jobs and classrooms with their hands raised, the gesture that has become a symbol for the death of Michael Brown, the unarmed African-American teenager shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo.
The protests - at colleges and high schools, and outside police stations, courthouses, city halls and federal buildings - came a week after St. Louis County prosecutors announced that a grand jury had declined to indict Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Mr. Brown. That decision set off a wave of anger, including arson and looting in Ferguson.
On Monday, the demonstrations from New England to Texas to California were mostly peaceful, the names of Mr. Brown, who was 18, and other African-Americans killed by law enforcement officers were read aloud. In some places, protesters sat in silence for four and a half minutes, representing the roughly four and a half hours that Mr. Brown's body lay on a Ferguson street after the Aug. 9 shooting.
In New York City, as part of what appeared to be the day's largest protest, the police made several arrests as demonstrators undertook a meandering march from Union Square to Times Square.
Demonstrators blocked streets in other cities. In Washington, protesters closed the 14th Street Bridge and lay down in front of the Justice Department.
At Harvard Law School, some 300 people gathered and chanted, 'No justice, no peace,' and hoisted a banner reading, 'Your peace is violence.'
At Washington University in St. Louis, scores of students marched and then held a 'die-in' in a campus lounge. They lay silent on the floor, a tangle of backpacks and winter coats, for four and a half minutes.
The walkouts on Monday were coordinated by protest leaders who have sought to channel public discontent about the shooting and the subsequent grand jury decision to focus attention on larger questions of police policies and racial discrimination.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, protest organizers who say they view themselves as part of a broader movement against police brutality and racial profiling, rather than advocates in a single case, met in St. Louis to decide what to do next.
They were asked to put stickers beside goals that seemed the most significant, including pressing for more elaborate reporting requirements by the police in cases in which officers used deadly force, as well as the appointment of special prosecutors for police shootings.
At the Harvard protest, Prof. Charles J. Ogletree Jr., founder of the law school's Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, exhorted students to fight for a more equitable society.
'Everyone has to get involved. Your friends, your neighbors, even your enemies,' Professor Ogletree said. 'We have to make sure that we are the people standing up for the people who find themselves victims of police violence.'
Derecka Purnell, a first-year law student from St. Louis, said there had been little indication that the grand jury decision had made a significant impact in Harvard's classrooms. She encouraged students to be more assertive about battling perceived injustices.
'Don't live a contradiction,' she said. 'Be vocal. Be present.'
Nearby, a group of about 350 students walked out of Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, a public school in Cambridge, Mass., and marched to Harvard Square, blocking traffic at some points.
'We wanted to show that people's lives are being interrupted,' said Sydney Fisher, 17, the student body president, who is black. She said her brothers often talked with her parents about how to interact with the police.
'It's petrifying to know that we're not safe,' she said.
In Iowa City, about 75 people chanting, 'Hands up, don't shoot!' marched to a police station and to City Hall in 18-degree weather.
At the University of California, Los Angeles, about 15 people gathered outside Campbell Hall and observed a moment of silence. Protests were reported on several campuses around Southern California.
'We're out here not just because they called for a protest, but because we all have a responsibility to put a stop sign in what can only be described as American genocide by these institutions,' Tala Deloria, a 19-year-old sophomore, said at the U.C.L.A. rally. 'When this genocide keeps happening, it is on us to band together with our friends, our peers, to create a voice for change.'
Among the protesters in New York was Ann Marie Jackson, 38, from Canarsie in Brooklyn, who said that her 17-year-old son, who is black, is often stopped without cause by police officers.
Many of the marchers were teenagers who had abandoned classes for a few hours.
'It's an outrage that this nonindictment could happen in this country,' said Zoe Fruchter, 15, a student at Bard High School Early College in Manhattan. 'I am here to show that I don't support what happened in Ferguson.'
A friend, Clara Kraebber, 14, who attends Hunter College High School in Manhattan, said the march was one of the few ways she could meaningfully register her opinion.
'We don't have much political power right now, being youths, but this is something we can do,' she said.
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