Speaking at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. preached, United States Attorney General Eric Holder recently announced that he will soon be disclosing a Justice Department guided plan aimed at ending racial profiling.  Holder made a trip to Atlanta to meet with community leaders and law enforcement for the first of a series of regional meetings around the country.  The President asked Holder to conduct the meetings in the midst of recent clashes between protesters and police in Ferguson, Missouri, and other cities around the country.

Holder said, “In the coming days, I will announce updated Justice Department guidance regarding profiling by federal law enforcement. This will institute new standards—and robust safeguards—to help end racial profiling, once and for all.”

The meeting fell on the day when protesters throughout the country walked off the job or out of class in support of the Ferguson protests. Walkouts took place in New York, San Francisco, and Oakland, and protests have continued on almost a daily basis.

While the grand jury has made its decision in the Brown case, the Justice Department is still investigating the death of Brown and New York City resident Eric Garner regarding allegations of unlawful conduct by the police as well as by the police departments that employed these officers.

Efforts to end racial profiling are essential to racial equality and improving human dignity for all people in this country. Racial prejudice and police brutality is a stain on our nation and needs to be remedied one and for all.