Welcome to the Ferguson Commission’s report.

We hope this innovative report format serves as an engagement tool, wrapping each signature priority with related policy calls to action, national model examples, context and history, day-to-day implications, as well as other necessary tools and information. If you would like to download the text of the report in traditional format, you may do so here.

Letter from the Co-Chairs

Dear Partners in Change, This report is presented with an understanding that it reveals difficult, uncomfortable truths about this region we call home. It should be read with an understanding that there are ways to address these issues, and that there are people of goodwill who want to address these issues. Perhaps most importantly, addressing…

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Overview

The title of this report is “Forward Through Ferguson: A Path Toward Racial Equity.” We want to take a few moments to explain what we mean.

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The Commission

What is the Ferguson Commission? The Ferguson Commission is an independent group appointed by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon on November 18, 2014, to conduct a “thorough, wide-ranging and unflinching study of the social and economic conditions that impede progress, equality and safety in the St. Louis region.” The need to address these conditions was underscored by…

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The Process of Change

Before we go any further, let us recognize one thing: Change is hard. Change requires different choices, different decisions, different actions. Change requires new effort, new relationships, new habits. Change requires letting go of the known and wading through the unfamiliar found in the dark of the unknown.

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Next Steps

*Note: In the final Ferguson Commission meeting on December 7th, 2015, the Commission affirmed that retaining key resources from the Commission work was crucial to the continuity of community trust and institutional knowledge. The Commission’s motion called for a handful of former Commissioners and key staff to form Forward Through Ferguson, an entity – named…

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