The Stream

‘Black brunch’ demonstrators take over restaurants to highlight police brutality

US brunch protests take place in the wake of police killings across the country.

Protests against police brutality took place at restaurants across the United States as diners sat down for their first meals of the new year. Demonstrators marched into what they considered predominately white breakfast restaurants, reading the names of black Americans killed by police. 

Demonstrations have continued in the months since Michael Brown, an unarmed black teen, was killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri. During the brunch protests, participants remain in the restaurant for four and a half minutes, to symbolise the four and half hours that Brown’s body was left out on the street in Ferguson. Though the brunch protests began in Oakland in 2014, the tactic has since been used across the country.

Participants shared photos from the protests using #BlackBrunch and #BlackBrunchNYC