Newark residents and the city's leaders aren't backing down from their decades-long fight to ensure strong civilian oversight of police misconduct.

On Thursday, about three dozen people joined Mayor Ras Baraka to protest the ruling by New Jersey's Supreme Court this week that weakened the city's Civilian Complaint Review Board's ability to investigate alleged police abuse. 

"History is about your conscience and your principals colliding with time," Baraka said on the steps of City Hall. "When you fail to act, when you fail to move, when you fail to do anything at that very moment, then you become an enemy of history, you are on the wrong side of history." 

Baraka is calling for bold and courageous action from the Legislature, the state Attorney General and Gov. Phil Murphy. He wants the review board to have the power to compel officers to testify during investigations. In a 6-to-1 decision, the court stripped subpoena power from the 11-member panel and said it can't investigate alleged officer abuse at the same time as the police department investigates its own.

Newark's general counsel Kenyatta Stewart said the board still has power —and residents should use it. Stewart is calling on everyone to file their police complaints with the CCRB first, so the board can start its investigation before the police department's internal affairs unit.

"You need to go and see the people in the CCRB and explain to them what happened and let them do the investigation, and guess what? They're gonna fix it," Stewart said. 

Thursday's rally was organized by the People's Organization for Progress, which has long pushed for police reforms. Newark also wants to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"In the meantime, we continue to have a knee on our neck and we die in this country because nobody has the will to act at the right time in history," Baraka said.