Protesters Ready for Clashes With Police Ahead of NYC Rally

"We want people to shut down their cities for justice. We are continuing where the freedom fighters of the civil rights movement left off," organizer Kate McNeely said in a statement. "We are a new generation of young multi-racial activists willing to take up the torch and we're not going to stand for this anymore," she added.

Demonstrators will gather in New York's Washington Square Park at 2 p.m. local time (19:00 GMT) on Saturday, the latest in a wave of discontent over grand jury decisions to not prosecute the white police officers, who killed unarmed black men Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

Protests are being staged "for all those killed by racist killer cops", and organizers demand an end to racial profiling by police and the creation of an independent prosecutor to handle "police misconduct and excessive use of force."

"I am here to plan a peaceful protest," organizer Umaara Iynaas Elliott said via social media. "I believe that people should be able to voice and be expressive about their anger about the injustices going on today, while still keeping the peace," she added.

The event uses the #BLACKLIVESMATTER hashtag, which has been used on social media in conversations about police killings of black people.

Garner, 43, an asthmatic street peddler selling untaxed cigarettes, died from a chokehold by a white police officer, Eric Daniel Pantaleo, in New York City on July 19. Michael Brown, 18, was shot and killed by lawman Darren Wilson, while walking down a leafy backstreet in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9.

Most recently, Akai Gurley was gunned down on November 22 by a white rookie NYPD officer in New York City as he was descending a darkened staircase in a public building.