THOUSANDS SHOW UP FOR HATE CRIMES MARCH

Thousands of demonstrators from across the U.S. heeded a call by Rev. Al Sharpton Friday and marched around the Justice Department in Washington D.C. to demand a government crackdown on hate crimes.


"We have so many people, we surrounded the Justice Department and two blocks more," the Rev. Al Sharpton told CNN as the orderly crowd marched around the building where newly sworn-in Attorney General Michael Mukasey was working. "This is a real outcry, a real outrage from people around this country."

In a statement, Mukasey said the Justice Department shares their vision of wiping out hate.

"Although there are limitations and challenges in bringing successful hate crimes prosecutions, the department takes each case seriously," Mukasey said. "As long as hatred and racism exist, the Justice Department will continue its hard and effective work on behalf of all victims of hate crimes," he said.

Led by Sharpton, Martin Luther King III and members of Sharpton's National Action Network, marchers walked from Freedom Plaza to the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building, which they circled seven times in an ode to the biblical story of the fall of Jericho.

The protest was sparked by a series of racially-charged incidents over the past 18 months: the police shooting of an unarmed man in New York, hours before his wedding, in November 2006; the appearance of nooses in several workplaces and schools; the case of a black teen charged with child molestation after having sex with another willing teen; and the story of a black West Virginia woman whom six white people allegedly raped, tortured and forced to eat animal feces as they berated her with racial slurs.

In a fact sheet released Thursday, the Justice Department said its Civil Rights Division "has set records and achieved notable successes in prosecuting defendants for civil rights violations."

It said 189 defendants had been convicted of civil rights violations in fiscal year 2007, "the largest number ever in the history of the department," breaking the previous year's record of 181 defendants convicted.

Meanwhile, the number of reported hate crimes has declined, according to the FBI. In 2005, when the latest FBI figures were released, the bureau said that the number of hate crimes reported that year was the lowest in a decade.