After facing quite a bit of racial invective in Rosebud on Tuesday, a group of marchers braced themselves for more of the same as they marched westward through Osage County on Wednesday.
But the crowd they encountered in Linn was mostly peaceful and curious, with only a few hecklers lining the roadway.
About 50 participants of all ages and races have joined the NAACP's 135-mile march - called the "Journey for Justice" - from Ferguson to Jefferson City. The march started Saturday in response to the St. Louis County grand jury's decision not to indict former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown Jr., a black teenager.
W.T. Edmonson, a Jefferson City resident, said he joined the march not only because he supported its message, but also because he felt it was an opportunity for him to participate in a historic event.
"There is a message here, that has to be made, that it is not okay to arbitrarily kill black men for minor charges," Edmonson said.
Edmonson said he feels the problem is systemic, rather than the fault of an individual police officer. He said the marchers are calling upon political leaders at all levels of government to examine laws that may be problematic and to fix shortcomings in police training.
"There's a mentality in police officers that shows they feel the need to come in with force, even before they know what the situation is," he said.
Edmonson, 62, said he wasn't old enough to participate in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and '60s.
"This is a new movement that is going to change this country, the way Martin Luther King's movement did," he said. "And to be alive now - and to see what is going on in this country - and not to stand up and speak out, is something I couldn't do."
Edmonson said Michael Brown's death may have provided a spark for the latest movement, but he said young black men have been slain by police officers time and again. He lamented a 12-year-old was shot dead on Nov. 22 by a Cleveland officer after police mistook a fake gun for a dangerous weapon, even though dispatchers were advised the gun might be fake.
He said if a tragedy unfolds "once in a blue moon," black Americans might be able to accept that bad things do happen.
"But it's case upon case," he said, attributing the loss of life to a lack of proper training of America's police force and a system that has failed to screen out bad apples.
"This is a situation that people of all races see as wrong," Edmonson said. "People see it as black and white. But it's right and wrong."
Edmonson wasn't the only person on the march who felt the event might be historically significant.
Aaron Faucher, 23, of Worchester, Massachusetts, said: "I really felt as though history is being made here, and I wanted to be a part of it. And I wanted to lend my support to the advocacy the NAACP is spearheading." Faucher said he's hopeful that new regulations might lead to less racial bias in community policing.
Although the marchers did see a few supporters along their route through Linn, several onlookers clearly disapproved as well. A few shouted an invective like "Get a job!" Others held up signs that said, "Quit Assaulting Police and You'll Stop Getting Shot!"
Travis Holtmeyer, an Osage County counter-protester holding a large cardboard sign, was asked by a law enforcement officer to stand farther away from the marchers' bus. Holtmeyer made the point that when he was asked to move, he complied.
Standing with a group of men who appeared to agree with him, Caleb Massman, 28, grumbled that black Americans are overly dependent on welfare and can be prone to violence. He noted that recently a Bosnian immigrant was beaten to death with a hammer in St. Louis.
"And we're supposed to respect them?" he asked incredulously.
Several small clusters of State Technical College of Missouri students lined the route. Many onlookers recorded the event with their smart phones.
"I just wanted to see why they are marching," said Logan Steinkamp, an 18-year-old student at the school. "I think it's going to be a part of history. I wanted to watch it and (record it) on my phone."
Steinkamp watched the march from the cab of a friend's pickup truck. The young men said they supported law enforcement.
"I feel white or black, purple or yellow, breaking the law is breaking the law," said Luke Roberts, 21 years old. "Wrong is wrong."
Brad Boeckmann of Linn came out to view the marchers and show respect to them.
"I don't agree with their views. But I respect their American rights to voice their opinions," he said. "And I thought the display in Rosebud was disgusting. That was just blatant racism, and it just proved the marchers' point that racism exists.
"After I saw that, I wanted to show that not everyone here is like that."
After sleeping overnight on the floor of Jason Gymnasium on the Lincoln University campus, many of the marchers woke up around 6 a.m. Wednesday. They boarded a large bus early in the morning, stopped briefly for more passengers at Quinn Chapel AME Church, made a quick trip to McDonald's for breakfast, before heading about 3 miles east of Linn to restart their journey.
Earlier in the week, the marchers had been using a St. Louis church - the Washington Metropolitan AME Zion Church - as their overnight base. They switched to Quinn Chapel as the base on Tuesday night.
At the end of each day, the marchers would go back to the base church, to clean up and rest, then return to the spot where the march ended the day before, to continue their walk to Jefferson City.
Their plan was to complete the journey today, arriving at the Governor's Mansion at mid-day.
The group's goal was to start every morning where they stopped the night before. However, the group also used "sprint teams" of faster walkers to keep the march on schedule. The group is moving about 20 miles per day. Although most of the marchers are walking every mile, some participants - for example, elderly with canes - are walking portions of the route.
On Wednesday, the marchers were well-protected by numerous law enforcement officers from the Missouri Highway Patrol, Osage County Sheriff's Department and Linn police. Their patrol cars helped alert other drivers to the marchers' presence and made it easier for the walkers to cross intersections.
The Department of Justice also had Kansas City-based personnel helping.
Anthony Witherspoon, pastor of the Washington Metropolitan AME Zion Church in St. Louis, described the situation in Rosebud the day before. Other marchers described hearing gunshots, chainsaws and saw people waving hammers at them.
"There was a sizable crowd on both sides of the road," Witherspoon said. "They were hurling racial slurs. It was ugly, nasty."
But Witherspoon said the organizers planned the march with a few vows in mind.
"We determined early on that we would be tightly knit, that we were going to press on, and that there would be no fear," he said.
Mary Ratliff, president of the Missouri NAACP, agreed the situation in Rosebud on Tuesday was a "very ugly scene."
"We've had some heckling along the way, but we've also had people bring us hot chocolate, coffee and sandwiches," she said. "And even in that crowd, we had people who were welcoming."