Armed with smartphones, social media platforms, and the ability to broadcast events around the world as they happened, those who took to the streets in 2014 themselves became one of the biggest stories of the year. Outraged over the shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., and the grand jury decision not to file criminal charges, people ignited demonstrations from the streets of Beverly Hills to the steps of Capitol Hill. Ferguson and other huge protests over police abuse, climate change, inequality, voting rights, and more have us calling 2014 the Year of the Barricades.