The police shooting of an unarmed black teenager on 9 August has sparked unrest and protests in the St Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri.
Relatives of Michael Brown, 18, said the community has come together to support them in their time of need.
An unidentified male cousin of Mr Brown's told the BBC, "It's hard but we're trying to get through it with all the support."
An unnamed female relative described Brown as "respectful" and "humble, very shy".
"The violence that they're doing right now messing our community up, he wouldn't have wanted," she added. "We're just keeping faith. We've got to have hope and pray because if you don't have hope and if you don't have faith and if you don't pray, we're not going to get justice."
'Overkill'
Earlier, following a rally organised by civil rights activist the Reverend Jesse Jackson, he described Mr Brown's death as part of "a pattern around the country of a black man being shot by white police, [falsely] arrested, stop and frisk, excessive jailing."
"This is a kind of lynching in 2014," Mr Jackson added
Residents in Ferguson echoed Mr Jackson's frustration with the treatment of African Americans by police.
"[I have] been harassed by police so therefore I definitely know where a lot of people are coming from when they say police can stop you and just harass you and say, 'Where you coming from or where you been?', " an unidentified male resident told the BBC.
"I'm a grown man so why do I have to answer that? I haven't [done] nothing. Do you see me running? Did anybody call in?"
"Police abuse their authority. Some think that they're bigger than the law... When they stop us, they feel they've got more power than us," an unnamed man in a crowd said.
"It's power. They have the power, they feel we don't. That's why they do the things that they do. What they did to young Michael Brown, that's unnecessary. That's overkill."
One unidentified man said he feared for his family's safety from overzealous authorities.
"As men in America, we don't feel safe right now. We don't feel like we can protect our children," he said. "I have a son that's driving right now and I'm worried about him when he's on these roads. I have a wife and I'm worried about her."
'Disheartening'
More people said what had occurred in Ferguson represented a growing national problem.
"It's just disheartening to hear that the police had to shoot that young man so many times," one local resident said. "It's just a case where we as a community don't feel safe right now, not only [in] St Louis but also any other major city in the United States."
Shawn, also a Ferguson resident, said, "These are our young black men that are being gunned down in the streets all over America."
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