The NAACP announced Monday that it had collected more than 1.7 million signatures on its petition calling for the Department of Justice to file charges against George Zimmerman.

About a million signatures came in from a majority of young people through their mobile devices and an additional 219,000 was turned over to the Justice Department last week by Color of Change, an online civil rights group.

NAACP President Ben Jealous said the petitions are an example of the advocacy his organization and others have organized since Zimmerman was acquitted of the shooting death of the teen.

Separately, he also talked about being organized to fight for civil rights, especially the Trayvon case.

"I often tell people I don't care whether they join the NAACP or some other group, but you better join something," Jealous said during a panel discussion on addressing racial inequities. "Because the reality is in a democracy there are only two types of power, there's organized people and organized money and organized money only wins when people aren't organized."
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(Photo: Earl Gibson III/Getty Images)