Other reports indicated that they were African-American youth. No doubt they were protesting the legacy of slavery anf Jim Crow.
Stop referring to them as African-American. They are black Americans. Not a damn one of them ever stepped foot outside GA.
Well, race is “fluid” after all, as Rachel Dolezal well knows. So, no matter what the camera shows, what counts is what the “youths” felt at the time about their “race.”
There are cases where behavior dictates that use of the N word is fully appropriate. This is one of them.