State of emergency called in Ferguson after gunfire mars protests

Protesters run to take cover after shots were fired in a police-officer involved shooting in Ferguson, Missouri August 9, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

Dellena Jones, an owner of a Ferguson hair salon vandalized on Sunday night, boarded up a smashed window and had a sign displayed in a window still intact that read: "We Must Stop Killing Each Other."

On a day of civil disobedience called by activists to protest the shooting of Brown and other unarmed black men across the United States by police, 57 people were arrested as they broke through barricades at a courthouse in St. Louis and blocked the entrance, the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri said.

Among those arrested was Princeton University professor and activist Cornel West, according to a protest organizer.

Clergy and civil rights groups led the rally of more than 100 people through city streets, shouting, "This is what democracy looks like" and "Black lives matter".

The death of Brown and a grand jury's decision to spare the white officer from criminal charges led to a wave of demonstrations that boiled over into rioting and arson at times and spawned sympathy rallies across the country.

Brown's death also prompted greater scrutiny of racial bias within the US criminal justice system, giving rise to the "Black Lives Matter" movement that gained momentum from other high-profile killings of unarmed minorities by white police in cities such as New York, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Cincinnati and most recently Arlington, Texas.