EVENTS of August 9 2014 and their aftermath were expected to play a role in the mayoral elections in Ferguson, Missouri, held this week.
Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man, was fatally shot by Darren Wilson (28), a white Ferguson police officer, after reportedly robbing a convenience store.
The circumstances of the shooting sparked existing tensions in the predominantly black city, where protests and civil unrest erupted.
Due to accounts that Brown had his hands up in surrender when he was shot, protesters chanted, ‘Hands up, don’t shoot!’
Ferguson became Ground Zero as protests, violent and peaceful, alongside looting and vandalism were met with aggression by the local police.
Issues to do with insensitivity and police tactics gained prominence in the national discourse forcing Missouri Governor Jay Nixon to order the local police to cede much of their authority to the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
Mayor James Knowles III (37) this month faced voters for the first time since the August 2014 fatal shooting of Brown.
Knowles, who was re-elected to his second term just five months before the Brown shooting, faced scorn from black residents and activists after he insisted in a television interview during the early days of the protests that there was no racial divide in Ferguson.
He later said he regretted making the comment.
He also grumbled in the aftermath of the unrest that he was facing far too much public criticism considering the city entrusts hiring, firing and other decisions on day-to-day matters to a city manager.
Interestingly, he is a former employee of the Ferguson Police Department, who served nearly four years in the department’s communications division.
Which would explain why he was quick to brush aside the clear racial tensions in his community.
In the run-up to the election, Knowles has been making the case that the city of about 21 000 — which entered into a court-monitored consent decree with the US Justice Department last year to implement a series of changes to Ferguson’s police department and municipal court – needs continuity at this delicate moment.
But surely, he cannot be trusted to implement meaningful change when he was in denial that there was a problem with the community in the first place.
As a result of the protests, Ferguson was forced to revamp its municipal court system, which was criticised by the Department of Justice for disproportionately targeting African-American residents.
Court revenue generated from fines, which used to range around US$2 million, has since fallen to less that US$600 000 a year.
However, hope for the brothers and sisters of Ferguson had come in the form of lifelong Ferguson resident, Ella Jones, who was challenging Knowles.
Jones became the town’s first black female city council member when she was elected less than seven months after the Brown shooting.
She has lived in the community for 40 years.
Jones made the case that she would be a unifying leader who could help bind the wounds of a community that is still healing.
She also did not shy from speaking about race and how black residents – who account for about two-thirds of Ferguson’s population (67 percent black and 29 percent white) – have been underserved in the community.
Jones described Knowles as a symbol of ‘division and racism’ and that his continued presence in office would hinder Ferguson’s ability to repair its image and become a city that is truly inclusive.
I agreed with Jones, but unfortunately, she lost the mayoral bid.
On Tuesday, Knowles won the election with 57 percent of the vote compared to Jones’ 43 percent.
If Jones had won, she would have been the city’s first black mayor, and added to the city’s effort to close the racial gap between residents and the city Government.
At a time when President Donald Trump has made it clear that he has no intention of building bridges with the black community, US needs as many local black politicians as it can get in office so that at least, at community level, our African-America brothers and sisters could get a shot at a better life.
The issues affecting them need to be articulated and addressed at local level before one can even talk of white America taking #Black Lives Matter seriously.