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ATLANTA Speaking at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta the church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday that he will soon unveil long-planned Justice Department guidance aimed at ending racial profiling.

Holder traveled to Atlanta to meet with law enforcement and community leaders for the first in a series of regional meetings around the country. The president asked Holder to set up the meetings in the wake of clashes between protesters and police in Ferguson, Missouri.

"In the coming days, I will announce updated Justice Department guidance regarding profiling by federal law enforcement. This will institute rigorous new standards and robust safeguards to help end racial profiling, once and for all," Holder said. "This new guidance will codify our commitment to the very highest standards of fair and effective policing."

Tensions between police and the community in Ferguson boiled over into violent confrontations in August after a white police officer shot a black teenager. Protests turned violent again last week after a grand jury declined to indict officer Darren Wilson in the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Holder's meeting in Atlanta included a closed roundtable discussion with law enforcement and community leaders followed by a public interfaith service and community forum.

The meeting came on the heels of President Barack Obama's request to federal agencies Monday for recommendations to ensure the U.S. isn't building a "militarized culture" within police departments. The White House also announced it wants more police to wear cameras that capture their interactions with civilians. The cameras are part of a $263 million spending package to help police departments improve their community relations.

The selection of King's church as the site for the meeting was significant. The most successful and enduring movements for change adhere to the principles of non-aggression and nonviolence that King preached, Holder said.

"As this congregation knows better than most, peaceful protest has long been a hallmark, and a legacy, of past struggles for progress," he said. "This is what Dr. King taught us, half a century ago, in his eloquent words from the Ebenezer pulpit and in the vision he shared from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial."

While the grand jury has made its decision, the Justice Department continues its investigation into the death of Brown and into allegations of unconstitutional policing patterns or practices by the Ferguson Police Department, Holder said to loud applause.

Holder also told the crowd that the meetings he's convening around the country are just the beginning and that he wants to start a frank dialogue and then translate that into concrete action and results.

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Eric Holder announces new guidelines targeted at racial profiling

Emmett Till Tree Memorial - Attorney General Eric Holder
Nov 17, 2014 - Attorney General Eric Holder speaks at the Emmett Till Tree Memorial on Capitol Hill. Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy was murdered during...

By: Janet Langhart Cohen

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Horace Cooper on Sean Hannity: Media, Eric Holder Partly Responsible for Destruction in Ferguson
Attorneys Horace Cooper (Project 21), Kisha Hebbon and Tamara Holder discuss the grand jury process that led to no charges being filed against officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri on...

By: National Center for Public Policy Research

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Horace Cooper on Sean Hannity: Media, Eric Holder Partly Responsible for Destruction in Ferguson - Video

By Julia Edwards and Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON, Nov 26 (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told civil rights activists the Justice Department would aggressively investigate police practices in Ferguson, Missouri, after a grand jury declined to indict a white officer who shot dead an unarmed black teenager, two of the activists said on Wednesday.

In a phone call late on Monday, Holder, the country's top law enforcer, said the Justice Department was "moving strongly" in its investigation of police patterns and practices, said Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, who was on the call.

Laura Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington legislative office, who was also on the call, said Holder is "very conscious of it needing to move quickly."

A Justice Department spokesman on Wednesday confirmed a call took place.

Police have arrested more than 400 people nationwide in two nights of protests that erupted after St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch announced on Monday the decision to not indict officer Darren Wilson in the fatal Aug. 9 shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Should the Justice Department conclude that Ferguson police systematically violated citizens' rights, it can take action under a 1994 federal law that prohibits officers from engaging in a "pattern or practice" that deprives people of their constitutional rights.

The law gives the Justice Department considerable leverage in requiring police departments to institute reforms, such as installing an independent monitor or adopting new training policies. Police departments facing such claims usually enter into a settlement with the Justice Department. A settlement may be enforced by a federal judge if the two parties agree.

TENSE RELATIONS

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Activists Say Eric Holder Promised Aggressive ...

WASHINGTON Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez on Monday defended departing Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. while avoiding speculation on whether he might become Holders successor.

After a long speech at the National Press Club in which Perez a Snyder native renewed the Obama administrations call for a higher minimum wage and other policies to share the nations wealth, Perez declined to dive deep into questions about the possibility that President Obama soon might nominate him to run the Justice Department.

But Perez cited by many Washington sources as one of the three central contenders for attorney general was happy to speak up for Holder.

Eric Holder stood up for voting rights. Eric Holder stood up for common-sense criminal-justice reform. Eric Holder ended up working on the crack/powder disparity in a bipartisan way with members of Congress, Perez said, referring to the disparity in federal prison sentences for crack and powder cocaine violations. These are many of the defining issues of our day, and whenever youre going to work on some of these defining issues of our day, you will have folks who oppose you.

While defending Holders record, though, Perez assistant attorney general for civil rights until taking the helm at the Labor Department last year declined to answer questions about the Justice Departments future priorities.

I have not studied that issue since I was at the Department of Labor, he said. I can tell you the Department of Labors priorities should be putting people back to work, continuing the pace of growth, making sure we have spared prosperity.

Shared prosperity proved to be the theme of Perezs speech at the Press Club.

Were on pace for 2014 to be the best year for private-sector job growth in 16 years, Perez said. But the difference between then and now is that the rising tide of the late 1990s lifted more boats the yachts and the rafts; the cruise liners and the dinghies.

But not now, which is why Perez added: The principal unfinished business of this recovery is to ensure that prosperity is broadly shared, and that we build an economy that works for everyone.

Perez then outlined a stairway to shared prosperity that began with the understanding that in the past, it has been a bipartisan priority. Noting that Republican President Theodore Roosevelt pushed shared prosperity more than a century ago, Perez said: Shared prosperity is not a fringe concept cooked up by socialists.

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Perez pushes shared prosperity while avoiding speculation on post of attorney general