MO. GRIEF & RELIEF
1-year anniversary of Brown shooting Ferguson slowly healing after tragedy
ON A STEAMY July morning, a lone man pushes a broom on the sidewalk of W. Florissant Ave. in Ferguson, Mo., a few blocks from where teen Michael Brown was killed by Officer Darren Wilson nearly one year prior. He tells me he was inspired to come out by a local radio station’s plea to “clean up” Ferguson.
“Things have been hard around here,” he says. “I wanted to do something. I didn’t know what else to do.”
One year later, this is the mantra of Ferguson. Something must be done, but no one is still sure what. Things need to change, but nobody can agree how or whether change is truly possible. Though the rubble of Ferguson’s burned-down buildings has mostly been cleared, signs of frustration remain. On W. Florissant’s buildings graffiti declares, “Let us purge White Amerikkk” and “This is our justice: we are ungovernable.” Murals on businesses that have been boarded since the fall violence proclaim, “Speak da truth — we stand with you.”
Which leads to the question — Who is “we” in a community torn apart by violence and distrust?
One year after the death of Michael Brown, “Ferguson” has become shorthand for destruction or resistance, depending on your view.
“Ferguson,” the movement, changed America as much as it changed Ferguson. Since August 2014, dozens of cases of police killings of black Americans have been protested across the country as the “Black Lives Matter” campaign gains force. The killing of Michael Brown was one of the catalysts for a transformation of the way our nation responds to and retaliates against police brutality.
But in St. Louis, the young man who became a national symbol is mourned by many as a life taken too soon — a killing for which there was no punishment. While most Americans remember Ferguson’s violence, St. Louisans remember the movement began with a vigil. Over the past year, the vigils have continued. On streetcorners across the region, teddy bears are tied to trees — makeshift memorials for other young lives ended in violence at the hands of the police or criminals, as St. Louis’ homicide rate soars 60% above the previous year.
St. Louis’ streets speak for themselves, and their story is grief.
“People are spent,” says Bob Hudgins (below), a white protester and Ferguson resident who ran unsuccessfully for city council in April. “They are physically exhausted. They just live it — the frustration, the discouragement. The meetings. The being on tenterhooks all the time. People are acting out because of rage and depression related to the lack of accountability. It’s an endless march of these guys getting away with murder.”
At 6 p.m., Hudgins was one of roughly twenty protesters who demonstrated outside the Ferguson Community Center, where Mayor James Knowles — currently the target of a recall campaign — had convened an informal “conversation with the community.” The meeting was designed for citizens to express their concerns about day-to-day life in Ferguson as the anniversary approached.
Outside the door, Knowles greeted Hudgins, ignoring an elderly, black woman wearing a shirt that read “Unarmed civilian.”
“You talk to the white man and walk right by me,” she said to Knowles. “Nothing has changed.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any offense,” Knowles muttered and entered the room.
Inside, citizens sat segregated, with black Ferguson residents largely clustered on one side. Ferguson is 65% black, but those in attendance were mostly white. Tony Rice, a black Ferguson resident and community activist, says this lack of political engagement is a result of officials refusing to reach out to black citizens who live on the outskirts of town.
“We have residents who have been here for 20 years and no one has ever knocked on their door,” he says. “It’s still that way. No one is there to engage them. At city hall, it’s like they rule over us, like this is their kingdom and we’re just serfs in it. ‘You do what we say, and if you don’t, we have ways to
punish you.’ The older residents realize that — that’s why they’ve been the most reluctant to sign the petition to recall Mayor Knowles.”
Before the community meeting began, citizens wrote questions to the mayor on index cards in an attempt to avoid the shouting that had characterized past meetings. The ploy failed. White and black citizens hurled insults at each other as the meeting progressed, and many accused Knowles of dodging questions on race. Outside, the cries of the protesters grew louder.
“Recall Knowles! Recall Knowles! This is what democracy looks like! If we don’t get it — shut it down!”
At 7:30, the protesters, most of whom are black, entered the
building, some armed with video cameras.
A white Ferguson resident shouted, “He gets to film and I don’t? That’s favoritism. We gave you guys the f------ moon.”
Immediately, Ferguson residents began screaming at each other, with some of the tension devolving into physical altercations, which police stationed in the building moved to break up. Outside, the familiar song of sirens began to wail. Residents rushed out the door and watched as white officers wrestled a black teenage girl to the ground. Soon, the parking lot was filled with police cars. At least three protesters were arrested.
It was a scene that could have happened last August. City officials have resigned, new laws have been passed, but on an emotional level, little has changed for the people of Ferguson.
“It feels like they just shuffled the chairs on the Titanic around. They replaced people with others who have the same attitudes,” Rice told me the next day as we sat in a Quiznos next to the police station. A white officer from the nearby town of Jennings entered the restaurant and greeted Rice warmly. Rice noted that there are some officers who want to do right, but they are not the majority.
“Officials haven’t made changes on their own,” he says. “All the changes that have been made were because they were dragged kicking and screaming to make them. When did they extend the olive branch or make a good-faith offering? No one is doing anything just because it’s the right thing to do. When that happens, then I will know that they have learned.”
But despite a violent and tumultuous year, both Rice and Hudgins say they do not want to live anywhere else. The problem, they say, is not the people of Ferguson but those who create and enforce community policies, often ignoring the plight of the black population.
“People in Ferguson love each other,” says Rice. “I mean, neighbor to neighbor. Every door we knocked on for the recall campaign, people would tell us how much like liked the guy nextdoor. ‘They’re my friends, they have the keys to my house.’ It’s a neighborly community, there’s no getting around that. In a way, it’s right that Ferguson doesn’t have a race problem — it doesn’t. City Hall does. The community does not need policing. They need a better relationship with the police.”
“I love Ferguson,” says Hudgins. “There’s definite possibility here. I’m still optimistic. If blacks had the political power they should have, this would be a very interesting place.”
Sarah Kendzior is a St. Louisbased writer.