Midwest Newsroom

Kayla Reed and Brittany Packnett Cunningham found their voices as activists during the Ferguson Uprising. They also forged a bond and strong friendship. So what happens when Brittany leaves St. Louis and Kayla stays?

After Texas Gov. Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in 2021, the governors of Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska answered his call to tackle crime and illegal immigration along the state’s border with Mexico. Their efforts are failing, critics say.

Owners of one of St. Louis’ and Kansas City’s highest-profile development firms face federal fraud charges in an alleged scheme that officials say defrauded a St. Louis city minority and women’s owned business program.

What happens to people who feel elite, and untouchable, when the city around them rises up to expose and oppose them? What happens when power takes a different shape — obscuring its nature and staying in its position?

On Wednesday, Aug. 6, St. Louis Public Radio and NPR news co-hosted "Ferguson and Beyond: A Community Conversation 10 Years Later" at Greater St. Mark Family Church, just miles from the epicenter of protests sparked by the killing of Michael Brown, Jr. by a Ferguson police officer in August 2014.

In St. Louis, many Black families moved to St. Louis County for better school districts. But after some time, those districts started having their own issues: white flight, decaying property values and consolidations. Some families moved even further northwest, only to face neighbors trying to prevent Black history from being taught.

Backyard and large-scale farmers in the Midwest and around the country report more deliveries that arrive too late for baby birds to survive. The trend is part of complaints about the USPS as it tries to stem budgetary bleeding.

Ferguson exposed systems that disenfranchise Black St. Louisans and fail their basic mandates to provide safety, health and community to the people who depend on them. Inspired by the Uprising and driven by experience and anger, many people found their voices and created their own new systems designed to help their community thrive.

Many educators say their districts aren’t supplying everything their students need. Non-profit groups, community organizations and even the courts are stepping in to help meet needs across the Midwest, but education advocates say it’s not a long-term solution.

What do you do when you get so angry, the emotion overtakes you? When injustice sparks a fire that won’t die down? For artists during the Ferguson Uprising, their craft offered them a way to make sense of Michael Brown Jr.’s killing. This special episode features songs, poems and a play from St. Louis-based artists who — 10 years later — are still reflecting on how Ferguson changed them and their art.