
Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
“We’re at the Rowan Community Center, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year. A group of young people and I decided we were going to invest in a building and be a beacon in the community. We’ve seen a lot of changes around this ward, most of them not for the better. So we’re here for folks to meet; do social, cultural, and political education; and just be here for the community. We had a session recently working on reflections about Ferguson. Folks had specific questions and we’re gonna do our first sharing of that information on my radio program, ‘Voices From the Battlefield.’
We’re seeing a lot of people also doing reflections on Ferguson and, for us, we don’t want it just to be, ‘I was there and did this and that.’ We want it to be about: What have we learned? What did we gain? What did we lose? And what are the next steps forward based on what’s happened? Let’s not let this just be a moment in which people say, ‘I was there,’ but ask, ‘What did I contribute to this region going forward?’ Particularly with an emphasis on race, because that’s still problematic, even 10 years later. It seems like commitments that were made got retracted and then probably re-upped with George Floyd. But, it’s pretty episodic. People feel good or bad and shoot some money that way. What we really need is systemic change.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
“Usually, I don’t start with what I do. I just say, ‘I’m Jamala.’ Not like I’m Cher or Beyoncé. But, I’m Jamala Rogers. I have my fingers in different lanes and try to connect them so they can converge, but all of them are important and have an overarching goal of justice and peace for all of humanity. First, you got to get the sectors that are the most marginalized and criminalized up to speed and then you can start having a table around equality. Before that, nothing is going to change.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
“The most impactful for me over the last 10 years has been seeing young people, especially those who were on the streets of Ferguson, come into their own. Psychologically and mentally, some of our young people didn’t make it. One, in particular, is in prison. So the ones who were able to become elected officials or heads of an organization, you see how they utilized the energy and spirit of Ferguson to keep going and propel themselves to new horizons. Watching and observing them has been really powerful to me.”
𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑠, 𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑟𝑠, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢, 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑎𝑑𝑣𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑜𝑟?
“Their first question is, ‘How have you been doing this THIS long? Cause I’ve been in it a year and I’m ready to throw my towel in.’ It’s not really about patience, it’s about commitment. Once you’ve committed, you do whatever adjustment you need — psychologically and financially — to make sure you can be present.
In my early years, I had elders tell me, ‘How are you gonna do this?’ So I try to pass that on, like, ‘It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. You’ve got to prepare for it in many ways.’ For young people, everything is quick, quick, quick. And if you don’t get it quick, quick, quick, they’re out of here. So it really is a commitment and not about having a short attention span or any self-gratification. Your values are gonna center you and you can always come back to that to remember why you’re here, who you’re doing the work for, and that it’s not just for yourself.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
“What’s been new to me and some of my other freedom fighters is trying to help young people coming into the movement for the very first time. Or maybe they’re sort of at the margins and now they want to make a leap but they haven’t had an orientation to movement spaces. I was part of a conversation recently about Gen Z and how Millennials are hard on them. One of the things I try to consider is the political climate in which people are socialized. Major events like 9/11 and the recession mean something. And now we have a generation who was pretty much told nothing they can do is wrong. So, employers are having a time with them. Movement spaces are having a time with them.
It’s a challenging place to be an organizer in 2024 as we barrel toward authoritarianism. We don’t know if we’ll even be able to protest after November 5th. And one of the biggest challenges is social media. You can really get lost there and get distracted from the goals. And sometimes that is the goal of social media — to get you off your game. The scary thing now is AI, because it’s being introduced in ways that are, as usual, sinister and harmful. Is this how we’re going to use this new technology, by ruining people and sending them into panic mode? I think we’re about to embark on some stuff worse than ‘1984.’ That was like a picnic compared to what we have today. The folks fighting the good fight, we just have to be ready for all the external conditions so we stay grounded. Because it’s a long road ahead.
People are also so used to throwing barbs across social media, that they don’t know how to have a principled discussion if they disagree. Social media is not the place to do that when we need to be sitting at a table looking at each other. Trying to reeducate people has been difficult. The people who are aging now like me, they’ve got other roles they’re playing, like taking care of parents and grandchildren. Some of them are in bad health, so there’s a void. We have to admit that and think about how we’re educating young people and let them reeducate the folks around them. And a lot of times our young people are having problems even doing that. I hear, ‘Jamala, I tried and it didn’t work.’ And I say, ‘But you can’t give up. You have to keep doing it and doing it. Sometimes it’s just a matter of repetition. And then reinforcement. That’s how I learned.’”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
“One of the reasons I wrote a book about Ferguson was because young people were asking questions. Media was asking, too, and from all over the world, ‘Why this place?’ and I definitely knew they really wouldn’t understand. They were just trying to get that quick answer, even though some did want to know. So I put together a historical context of it. That’s why it’s called ‘Ferguson is America: Roots of Rebellion.’ It could have been any city in America. When Ferguson kicked off, I pointed to the Commission report. They told us in very clear terms what the issues are and we know the combustible moment was a police incident. So, here we are. Because it’s the 10th anniversary, we brought the book back out and the young people have been hustling to sell it because they get all the proceeds. Once the printing expenses were recouped some years ago, all sales have since directly to the Youth Council for Positive Development, the youth component of the Organization for Black Struggle.
Overall, the book has to do with the political analysis and historical context of Ferguson. I think it’s been helpful for people to read. And it’s in plain language. Young people said we had to have pictures, so there are lots of those in there about Ferguson, St. Louis City, and St. Louis County. When you’re here for 30, 40, 50 years before the Ferguson Uprising kicked off, people knew what was happening there. Other writers have mentioned Ferguson in their books but often did it from a remote distance sitting in an ivory tower. I write regularly, so I can also refer to things I’ve written. I can plagiarize all I want to ’cause it’s my stuff.”


Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
“One question people ask about St. Louis is, ‘Why are there so many municipalities?’ They didn’t understand about white flight either. People kept moving further west and further north. And I kept trying to say, ‘When you all leave, so do the services. So if you don’t want people to follow, make sure the services and all the other good stuff that comes with a community stay.’
When the Ferguson Uprising started, friends across the country were asking, ‘You all got an apartheid situation there? How y’all lettin’ that happen?’ Truly, 60-70% of the folks in Ferguson were African Americans and everyone else was white. City council was white. Police department was white. ‘What? How is that happening in 2014?’ Ferguson pulled a scab off of a lot of stuff that was happening, including the Attorney General saying the place was using people like an ATM because of all the money coming from citations and tickets. If you lived there, most people knew that was happening. A lot of that got exposed. That means there has to be organization in place to hold people accountable. Otherwise, it just defaults to what works for municipalities and their self interests.
So the book helps people understand this region better, how each of our municipalities is a little fiefdom, and how they’re gonna hold on to all they have and control who comes, who goes, who has power, who doesn’t. And it’s still relevant because we’re still trying to figure out how governance and inclusion work. We’ve seen inclusion and Racial Equity take some hits from the highest court in the land. So, how do you pivot and continue to work? I’d like to say there are opportunities, but there are plenty of challenges.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
𝐼𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑑𝑒 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝐹𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑢𝑠𝑜𝑛, 𝑎𝑠 𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑚𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑚𝑎𝑦 𝑏𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑛𝑜𝑡?
“Sometimes there was progress and then that progress was beaten back or over time it faded. It’s all transitional. I vividly remember being on the streets of Ferguson and saying, ‘There’s gonna at least have to be a law to change the formula of how police can get these tickets.’ In 2015, Ferguson expected to collect over three million dollars in revenue from fines and fees, 23% of the city’s total budget, and we needed to lower that. Well, laws take a lot of time to change. Some I’ve been working on for 15 years. I remember I told that to a young person, they looked at me, and their enthusiasm just dropped: ‘I can’t wait that long.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I know. Change is slow here. But the more people you get to work on that, the faster it’s gonna go.’
We saw about 12 pieces of legislation introduced that year dealing with how much money the municipality could get from ticketing. And one made it through and was then challenged by the court. Again, you have to be committed to ongoing organizing, not necessarily around one issue, but put that in the context of organizing for democracy. For a Black person to not be able to drive or walk down a street because they’d get ticketed, where do you go with that?”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
“The thing I took note of coming out of Ferguson is that there was a resistance and resilience that we’re never going back to being not woke. For example, when I saw that the Saint Louis Public Schools superintendent had been let go, I looked at that as a reverberation of Ferguson. Because people are paying more attention to what people are saying, what they’re doing, how they’re spending. And I wondered, ‘Who knew?’ The folks who were there watching must have agreed, ‘No, this is not going to be tolerated.’ I don’t think the SLPS superintendent even made it a year. But folks were on it, like, ‘We had a surplus, now we have a deficit.’
For a lot of people, this work can be overwhelming. I tell them, ‘Pick one thing you’re passionate about and stay there.’ Nobody’s asking you to save the whole world. Pick something then find other people to help you work on it.’ Because it’s not a luxury right now to be passive and spectating. There’s just too much going on and too much going on that’s gonna affect all of us in ways we have not even imagined. For me, it’s all about: How do you maximize a democracy? And how do you protect people’s human rights? Fight for that.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑡 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢, 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜’𝑠 𝑑𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑠𝑚 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑧𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝑡𝑜 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑓𝑜𝑙𝑘𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑛’𝑡 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑎 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑟, ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑛’𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔, ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑛’𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘 𝑎𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙?
“When people come to me, I have to determine whether they’re truly about the movement. ‘How did they even come to be in front of me, asking me a question?’ Sometimes folks are looking for direction and affirmation, which is an opening for me to continue the dialogue. Because if you’re serious, I can tell you how you can do it. But often, out of a moment of guilt or whatever, people express, ‘What can I do?’ I got a lot of that, not during Ferguson, but during George Floyd, because people saw him being murdered. I’m talkin’ people who weren’t movement people, Black and white, asking, ‘Wow! What can I do?’ I said, ‘First, you can’t go back into the real world. You’ve got to find a way to hold people, particularly police, accountable wherever you are. They keep getting more power and authority judicially or legislatively. And that’s gonna be a problem because when you go back and try to make them accountable, then there are all these laws in place to prevent the police and courts from being held accountable.
The Fraternal Order of Police has already made sure they’re not giving up an inch. And they haven’t. Meanwhile, we’ve been writing a new version of civilian oversight and the new board has been picked. The broader community needs to know about the new ordinance — what it is and what it’s not. So when people see things happening, they’ll know if the law doesn’t give certain authority. We’re looking for more of the public to be engaged in that process, too, because when you complain after the fact, that’s not helpful. And some things I don’t like are whiners and complainers. If it’s temporary because you have a moment we all have, that’s understandable. But you have to pick yourself back up and get in the game to say, ‘That’s a problem. How can I address that?’ as opposed to, ‘I’m sick of this. I can’t do this.’
I’m an energy person. I try to give off light and I get it from other people. But if you’re complaining, you’re giving up power and you can’t do that. Because the people who abuse power are gonna use it against you. Once we educate people and say, ‘Here’s why the system is the way it is, here’s the role people play,’ we all have a piece of the answer. But if you’re just gonna sit in a seat on the porch, observing and complaining, I’m not gonna spend a whole lot of time with you. No, I’ll see you later. I’m gonna go to the person saying, ‘I’m tryin’ to start a group to get this alley cleaned up,’ or ‘I want to be able to hold our officials accountable.’ I got some time for that. I’ll make time for that.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
“There is an office of oversight that has a director and a whole staff of investigators. The ordinance was challenged by the police department. Now that that’s lifted, we’re updating the ordinance and getting new members in. We keep saying we’re a resource. We’re not gonna run interference until we see that you’re not doing what you’re supposed to. If that happens, then you’re gonna hear a lot of clamor.
We’re currently working with the Mayor’s office and the Office of Oversight. It’s a lot of work. We’re talking about 20 years of work, starting with trying to get local control. Many said, ‘Y’all aren’t gonna be able to do it.’ You take a police department that’s been under the Governor’s office since the Civil War and then we got local control. Well, then we needed oversight. It was always a two-for, because if we got one and not the other, what would have been the point? So, unflinching progress is gonna look like, the Detention Facility Oversight Board (which is over the jails and made up of a citizen committee) and the Civilian Oversight Board (which is over the police). When I see those operating with respect and in accordance with the ordinance, that’s unflinching progress.
That’s why I say, ‘Pick your poison and go with it.’ And, unfortunately, because there’s not that kind of involvement, then it’s almost like a virus, getting worse and worse. And when people finally say, ‘We need to do something!’ so much work is gonna have to be done to turn things around. It’s like having cancer. You’ve got to dig it out and do the radiation. It’s like extra work when if you would have done the initial detection, you could have done some stuff to then be done. Things are so entrenched now that people believe they can never be changed. But the incremental reforms helped people believe, ‘Oh, something did happen.’
I can’t tell you how many people said we couldn’t get local control back because the governor had it. And I said, ‘Hmm, watch us.’ There was a whole strategy unleashed. We organized the whole city and everybody had a part. Anti-racist white people worked the Southside, we worked the elected officials, and we re-educated people about the role of the police and how we wanted to re-envision public safety that is not about more police but about community engagement and addressing the issues that create crime and violence. Because as long as you aren’t doing that, you’re just gonna keep locking people up.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
“This is a rough time for people to get involved and be trusting enough of what they see when they see people doing stuff. It’s a matter of finding your political home and trying to build a critical mass, particularly here in the St. Louis region because it’s fairly fragmented. Even the movement spaces are fragmented. COVID did a lot to keep that happening. So, we have to figure out how to come back into the fold and maximize our power, resources, skills, and talents. Because who knows what will happen in the next election? I always say, ‘Whoever it is, we still gotta organize.’ We gotta build power for our communities. It might look different, but it doesn’t stop.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠 𝑢𝑛𝑓𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢? 𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑡 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑛 𝑑𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑡?
“For me, unflinching progress means systemic change. Because what happened to Sonya Massey is going to continue to happen since for whatever reason we haven’t figured out how to hold the people accountable who have guns assigned to them and are licensed to kill. Until I see policies and laws in place that check that kind of authority and abuse of power, then, to me, there’s no progress. For years I’ve been talking about how to move protest to policy and real change. Because you can protest until the cows come home. Even when we say, ‘Say her name,’ okay, so now what? I’m gonna say her name. Now what are we gonna DO? That’s another level of commitment and work that needs to be done.
So when I look at this region and the elected officials and what they’re doing and not doing, I’m not even talking about radical change, I’m just talking about change that benefits the majority. That still isn’t happening. So you don’t even have to do the radical piece. Do some reforms that help the majority of people. For example, when I see a legislator who doesn’t want to enact the expansion of Medicaid, I don’t get it. Or, look at Christopher Dunn’s case. This man had been in prison for over 30 years and was recently exonerated. And the Attorney General, like the ones before him, always put up a fight. Why is that? The next time a person’s exonerated, that office should be the first to support that. That’s unflinching progress. Why has that office traditionally opposed every exoneration? This man was sitting up there thinking he finally got good news and there are people finding more and more ways to keep him in jail. We should be jumping through hoops to get someone like Dunn back to his family and into his community.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
“It’s not even an anomaly anymore that folks are wrongly convicted and in prison. Still, the system has not redeemed itself enough to say, ‘We made some horrific mistakes. What do we need to put in place so they don’t happen again?’ So when I see wrongfully convicted people being exonerated en masse, not one at a time every three years, that’s unflinching progress. When a prosecutor is corrupt, intimidating witnesses, and changing and hiding evidence, all those cases should be up for review. And if those so-called convicted people have done more than 10 years, they need to be exonerated. A lot of them have given up, thinking nobody will hear this case, but it doesn’t mean they’re not there. That’s not even radical. That’s doing your damn job because your office has committed crimes against people. It’s just as important for you to deal with the current convictions as it is to go back. Your office cannot enjoy full integrity until it is done.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
“One of the campaigns the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression has now is how not to call the police. Because even though Black people know there’s gonna be some drama when they call, they feel like they don’t know who else to call. There are no other resources. And particularly, if you have a situation when somebody’s having a psychotic episode and they need mental health resources, the police aren’t going to be helpful. Time and time again, when the police show up, it’s not gonna fare well. Now with Sonya Massey, we’re gonna re-up that and do more on the campaign. Because that poor woman thought that was the right thing to do, now she’s gone and her children are left without their mother. Who wants to be a hashtag? I want to be alive.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
𝐴 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑛𝑜𝑤, 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘, 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑑 𝑖𝑡 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑?
“That unflinching progress. The prevailing work is not going to end because the baton was passed to me. And those people who left and transitioned knew their work wasn’t done. It’s a continuum. You do what you can in the short time you’re on this earth and you do it well with dignity and purpose. That’s all you really can do. I think there’s going to be some legacy of the work I’ve done and the work at the organizations I’m a part of. But the hope is that it’s so blended that you see progress and don’t know who’s responsible for it. Kind of like what we do now. I tell young people, ‘You’re sitting in the front of the bus and that wasn’t a given at one point in time. You’re enjoying democracy and things as you know it. You think it’s the way it’s been all the time, but that hasn’t always been the case.’ That’s what I’m looking for — that seamless improvement of people’s lives so they’re a part of a true democracy, not an experimental one. And that everybody is going to be able to maximize their full potential. For me, it’s not an individual legacy. It’s how do we look at St. Louis and say, ‘Who are the movers and shakers that helped us get to Point A, Point B, Point C?’”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
𝑊ℎ𝑦 𝑑𝑖𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑦 𝑖𝑛 𝑆𝑡. 𝐿𝑜𝑢𝑖𝑠?
“Because by the time I realized that this was a cesspool, it was too late to leave. I was already pretty much grounded here. When I came here, I was thinking this was green. I left Kansas City, like, ‘There are all these things happening in St. Louis.’ But what I didn’t know was that the group of people I was hanging out with was so small and insular that I didn’t get to know the rest of this place. Then when I started doing the research, studying about Dred Scott, and I still believe that decision has a lot to do with how white and Black people think and act in this city, I said, ‘This is gonna be harder than I thought.’ As a young person, people would say to me, ‘You’re not from here, are you? I know you’re all young and ready to go, but tone it down a bit.’ I’m not one for toning it down. And it’s not based on my age, because I’m almost 74 and not trying to tone it down. No, it’s time to turn it up.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡 10 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠, 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑎 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠? 𝐴𝑛𝑑, 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑙𝑖𝑝 𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒, 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎 𝑚𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑑 𝑎 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑜?
“One highlight that actually became a disappointment was the fight for Cure Violence. The Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression looked at that model and how we do what we do. We do the research, we do the thoughtful consideration, and we talk to people. St. Louis has been the murder capital of the world on more than one occasion. We’ve been the number one or in the top three, and clearly it was not being addressed in a scientific way. So Cure Violence was created by a doctor who studied infectious diseases and he noted that violence is a lot like infections. And it spreads. We definitely agreed with that because we see it. And when we were doing the data, this particular neighborhood was one of the highest for homicides. So, we geared up and in order to make it real you have to interact with our elected officials. That’s not my best skill or talent. But when it comes to begging for my community, especially for children, I’m gonna do what I have to do.
So we had a whole meeting with the elected officials about Cure Violence. We hobnobbed, we convinced, we educated. They embraced it. We got the dollars to back it up. And we said it couldn’t just take place for a year, it had to be rolled out over many years to see how it would work. When that happened and we got the money, we were elated. It was gonna make sense. It was gonna make a difference. And it got political very quickly. When there’s a particular formula for getting results, any tampering or tinkering with that process on the way compromises the outcome. We started to see some of that happening. Then one of the elected officials said, ‘Let’s give that money to X, Y, and Z.’ We said, ‘No, that’s not how it’s set up. It’s set up so people who’ve been doing that work and know that work can continue.’
Unfortunately, the program is no longer called Cure Violence. It’s a violence prevention program and, to the mayor’s credit, it’s in the Office of Violence Prevention. But what happened to the original project and plan was tragic. It took a lot of time, effort, and convincing people. And it was like, ‘Wait, how can we transcend to let folks know that once we got these first three areas — Wells-Goodfellow, Walnut Park, and Dutchtown — stabilized, we can move to other areas? Nobody’s being left out.’ The violence was spreading, so if something happened in one part of the city and retaliation happened in another part, you had to follow the violence, interrupt it, educate people, and get services there. But people didn’t want to follow that method. So, that was both a high and a low.”

Photo credit: Lindy Drew / Humans of St. Louis
“To be real, I didn’t think Forward Through Ferguson would still be around. I mean, part of what Reverend Starsky Wilson and the team tried to do, to their credit, was get folks involved who were already doing the work. And that would either expand the work or intensify it. Because we’ve seen a lot of these studies, reports, and recommendations, and they literally went nowhere. They’re on shelves. And I got a number of them on my shelf. So when the organization came into being, I said, ‘This too shall pass.’ So, talk about somebody being elated that 10 years later they’re still around to talk about. And some of the work and progress reports they’ve put out over the past decade — I’m glad they’re here. And I’m glad that they remind us, even in the name where they come from, that we can appreciate how somebody’s vision is still here.”