Melanie Randels moved to Ferguson from St. Louis late in spring 2014. The 38-year-old relocated to the north St. Louis County suburb so her children could attend better schools and her family could have a higher quality of life.
“Ferguson was always considered to be a good neighborhood. They had nice retail, they had libraries, all the things that make a community a good community,” Randels said. “Three months later, the way that I viewed Ferguson and policing and community was definitely changed forever.”
When Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson police officer, shot and killed Michael Brown Jr., a Black 18-year-old, on August 9, 2014, Randels said it exposed the practices of over-policing and unfair treatment from law enforcement that Black people in north county had encountered for years.
“It would always be a running conversation, ‘Oh, don't drive down New Florissant or don't drive in Cool Valley too fast, they'll be waiting on you,’” she said.
Brown's killing ignited months of protests, demands for reform locally and nationally and investigations by the federal government into how law enforcement and courts operated in the region. Later that year, a grand jury declined to charge Wilson and a review by the U.S. Department of Justice found there was not enough evidence to take the case to trial.
Some Black residents in Ferguson say over the last decade they have seen positive changes in the community involving police because they no longer stop and arrest drivers as often. The increase in community centers and new businesses has helped bring pride back to a place that was negatively thrust into the national spotlight after the killing of Brown. Still, many say there is much work to do in Ferguson to improve the lives of its Black residents.
At the corner of West Florissant Avenue and Northwinds Estates Drive sits the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis and Salvation Army center. Ten years ago, this exact location was ground zero for demonstrators during the unrest when enraged protestors set fire to a QuickTrip gas station.
As residents this week visited the community hub to find jobs, get bills paid or sign up for social services, some stopped by the memorial art exhibit “As I See You,” put on by Michael Brown Sr. 's Chosen for Change Organization, about his son’s life that has been on display.
“As soon as you walk in, you just instantly just feel the chills, you feel like it was 10 years ago again,” Malik Taylor said. “I think that’s the purpose of it, to put you in the mindset so that we don’t forget.”
Inside the exhibit, artists from the area display a large painting of Brown in his high school cap and gown, a row of tightly shot photos from the 2014 Ferguson uprisings and collages of Brown. A hand-woven quilt with messages from the community hang from the ceiling and a life-size sculpture of Brown sits at a classroom desk wearing headphones, a Cardinals cap and holds a Normandy High School diploma.
Taylor, a 28-year-old local rapper and the community center’s youth job coach, said Brown’s death pushes him to show up for the younger Black men in the area who need help finding jobs and staying employed.
“We are empowering people over here, so we don't get situations like Mike Brown,” he said. “We have great independent thinkers who are making money for themselves and are able to do good in the community.”
Taylor said many Black people in the area, including himself, have had traumatic experiences with police that have negatively impacted their lives and mental health.
“I was being profiled and kind of helpless, just, I'm pretty much at the hands of this officer, and this was probably right before Mike Brown [was killed], but I could still feel the awkwardness,” he said. “I didn't feel comfortable in that situation. I knew it was nothing that I wasn't really doing wrong.”
Randels has also had bad experiences with police, but after Brown’s death, she said it seems that the community is learning to take better care of themselves.
“I think that we as a people have grown a lot when it comes to … understanding mental health, to understanding the stages of grief, how PTSD has inadvertently affected many of us,” she said.
Randels said she’s noticed over-policing of Black drivers in the area has died down, but many Black residents still suffer from previous trauma.
The U.S. Department of Justice noted that trauma when it investigated Ferguson’s police and municipal courts after Brown’s death. The DOJ found the courts violated residents' civil rights and called for reforms — including requiring police to wear body cameras and changing use of force policies.
Policing in Ferguson
Mending the relationship between Black residents and Ferguson police has been a tough job for police chiefs over the years. The majority Black city has had five permanent police chiefs since Brown’s death. Randels said Black drivers may not be pulled over as much, but the relationship with police is still frayed.
When he was sworn in in March 2023, Ferguson police chief Troy Doyle said he would work to change the culture and assure the department that the consent decree — a 2016 agreement between Ferguson and the DOJ to implement better policing policies — is favorable. In April, he told St. Louis Public Radio that he has increased the number of Black officers, made cosmetic changes to its police cars, and his officers are giving more warnings than citations.
Ferguson police have been criticized over the years for excessive ticketing. According to the Missouri Attorney General’s 2022 Vehicle Stops Report, Black drivers are stopped and arrested by police at higher rates than white drivers.
Policing isn't the only part of law enforcement that has faced critique. In a recent report, ArchCity Defenders called for the consolidation of St. Louis’ municipal court system. The civil rights organization said the courts are disproportionately harming poor and Black people.
Moving forward
Policing will always be a concern in Ferguson, says St. Louis County NAACP chapter president John Bowman, but he sees progress in other areas.
“You have the opening of new health care clinics over there now, like Affinia and Mercy,” he said. “The other thing I think that has really been a positive direction is the number of Black business owners in Ferguson. They have grown tremendously.”
But he senses that people are not fully connected to the resources bestowed upon the community.
“Then it's not really adding the value that it should,” Bowman said.
Besides new businesses and community spaces, Bowman said one of the Ferguson protest movement’s greatest accomplishments was the increase in the number of Black politicians, community organizers and activists.
One of those politicians is Ella Jones, Ferguson's first Black mayor who was elected in 2020. She said at the grand opening last week of the Urban League’s new facility off Pershall Road in Ferguson that her time in office has brought many challenges. Jones said the community has grown since the death of Brown, but mending race relations between Black and white residents is difficult. She is also trying to get more people involved in city government to help bridge that gap.
Jones said she is impressed by the work the Urban League and other organizations have done in the community. Thousands of people have received jobs through the Urban League's Save our Sons and Daughters program, which she said is helping build momentum in the community.
“You have to be mindful that no growth, no equality, no diversity can happen without people,” she said, “It can happen with people who are willing to work together to move not only their ideas forward but move the community forward.”
