Chinese have long supported African American's struggle for equality

Washington DC teems with historical sites of African Americans struggle for equality, whether it's the Frederick Douglass House, the U Street or the relatively new Martin Luther King Jr Memorial designed by Chinese artist Lei Yixin.

These sites seem more relevant in the past week as cities across the US saw waves of protests against police brutality after the killings of two African-American men by police. The protests continued over the weekend in cities — from Washington, New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, Dallas and Miami to Nashville, Indianapolis and St Paul, resulting in scores of arrests.

In the Saturday night protest in Washington, a group marched peacefully through the downtown, chanting, "We young. We strong. We marching all night on," CNN reported.

The protests this time were triggered by videos showing fatal police encounters with two black men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, respectively in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and suburban Minneapolis. Protests also came after an African-American sniper killed five white police officers and wounded seven others in Dallas on Thursday.

I witnessed such angry protests in Washington in 2014 after the deadly shooting of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man, in Ferguson, Missouri, in August of that year by a white police officer, and the death in July that year of another black man, Eric Garner, in Staten Island, New York, after a police officer put him in chokehold for 15 to 19 seconds while arresting him.

On Feb 22, 2012, US President Barack Obama helped break ground the National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall. But when he cuts the ribbon at the scheduled opening on Sept 24 of this year, Obama and all Americans will be bitterly reminded that African Americans' struggle for equality is far from accomplished despite the fact that Obama has become the first black president in US history and served for almost eight years.

Police brutality and racial tensions were listed as two key concerns in the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2015 report released by China's State Council's Information Office in April of this year. The report is usually released each year after the US State Department announces its reports on the human rights situation in every other country in the world except the US.