Hundreds of people gathered in a St. Louis park on Sunday for a rally against police violence that is expected to bring together the family of Michael Brown, killed by an officer in Missouri this month, and the parents of Trayvon Martin, a Florida teenager shot dead in 2012.
The Peace Fest rally in Forest Park takes place one day before the funeral of Brown. The slaying of the 18-year-old black youth by a white police officer, Darren Wilson, in the St Louis suburb of Ferguson on Aug. 9 led to days of unrest and drew global attention to race relations in the United States.
The shooting of Martin by a civilian vigilante re-ignited the debate about the state of race relations in the United States at a level not seen in recent years, with family and supporters saying it showed the rough treatment that black youths face.
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