As Rachel Maddow noted in the clip above, for anyone who was "wondering when the events in Ferguson were going to shift from a local story getting some national coverage to being a full on national story, this might be it."

So far things appear to be much more peaceful in Ferguson this Thursday evening and across the country, this is happening.

#NMOS14: Vigils to honor victims, protest police actions:

Today at 7 p.m. ET, from Hawaii to New York, hundreds of groups plan to take to their communities in the U.S. in peaceful protest of what they describe as excessive police force.

It all began with the Twitter hashtag #NMOS14, which calls for a national moment of silence, coming days after unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown was killed by police in Ferguson, Mo.

"It's not just Ferguson. Police brutality is pervasive. It's happening in so many cities," New York-based social worker and community activist known online as Feminista Jones told the USA TODAY Network.

After an activist posted on Twitter that there would be a vigil in downtown Manhattan for Brown, Feminista Jones reached out.

"I wonder why they always have vigils so far removed from the people who are most likely to be affected by police brutality," she wrote back to the poster. "I just know that people in the Bronx and Brooklyn will struggle getting there on Sunday trains." (The correspondence is documented in a Storify.)

Plans for the peaceful assemblies began through that platform, then moved to Facebook. It's an update to activism Jones compares to "phone banking and letter writing — just reaching 90,000 people."

"We're having a national moment of silence — one chord, one silent voice — to honor not only Mike Brown, not only Eric Garner, but all victims of police brutality, especially those who have lost their lives," she said. Read on...

Here's more from the hashtag #NMOS14 on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/alexisgoldstein/status/500066039787716608

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