CBS News
10 years after Michael Brown’s death, Ferguson sees progress but problems persist
Michael Brown once told his father the “world is going to know my name” – words Michael Brown Sr. still takes to heart.
Friday marks 10 years since the 18-year-old was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, turning the St. Louis suburb into the focal point of the national reckoning with the historically tense relationship between U.S. law enforcement and Black people.
The elder Brown now devotes his time to the Michael Brown Sr. Chosen for Change Organization, a foundation that helps fathers, mothers and children come to grips with tragedy in their lives. It’s a legacy he feels obligated to pass on under the name he shares with his son.
“He was going to shake the world,” Brown said of his son. “So, I guess that’s what we’re doing. He’s still doing the work from the grave.”
Brown’s death catalyzed massive change in Ferguson. In 2014, every city leader was white in the majority-Black city. Today, the mayor, police chief, city attorney and other leaders are Black. The mostly-white police force of a decade ago now has more officers that are Black than white.
The municipal court system that once brought in millions of dollars in fines and fees, often for relatively minor traffic offenses – paid mostly by poor residents – now collects only a fraction of that.
But problems persist. The current and former mayors acknowledge that race still divides the community of 18,000 residents. Some are concerned that police, wary of criticism, aren’t enforcing traffic laws, since serious and sometimes fatal wrecks are common.
What happened on Aug. 9, 2014
Michael Brown and a friend were walking along Canfield Drive when Officer Darren Wilson drove up and told them to get on the sidewalk. A fight ensued and fearing for his life, the teenager ran.
Though Brown was unarmed, Wilson described Brown as menacing at 6-foot-4 and claimed he came at the officer. But some nearby residents said Brown had his hands up in surrender when Wilson shot him.
Activist Zaki Baruti recalled the horror and fear that other Black residents felt after Brown’s death.
“There was a sense of shock, not knowing what to do,” Baruti said.
James Knowles III, who was mayor in 2014, believes that the widespread anger about Brown’s death was driven by several factors. Social media allowed information – and sometimes misinformation – to spread quickly, he said. Neighbors were incensed when Brown’s body was left in the street for over four hours on that hot August afternoon.
The night after Brown’s death, thousands of protesters marched along West Florissant Avenue, near Canfield. A QuikTrip convenience store was torched, and goods were stolen from many businesses. Months of fierce protest, at which demonstrators were tear-gassed, soon thrust the city into the national spotlight.
When St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch announced in November 2014 that Wilson would not be charged, protests erupted again.
What changed in Ferguson
In 2015, an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice also found no grounds to prosecute Wilson. But the report gave a scathing indictment of the police department – raising significant concerns about how officers treated Black residents, and about a court system that created a cycle of debt for many residents. A year later, the city agreed to a federal consent decree requiring sweeping changes. The decree is still ongoing.
Missouri lawmakers stepped in, too. In 2016, legislators passed a law limiting the amount of revenue that municipal courts could collect from fines.
In 2013, Ferguson collected $2 million in court fines and fees, according to data from ArchCity Defenders, a St. Louis-based civil rights law firm. In 2023, the city collected about $97,000 – a decline of more than 95%.
Last month at a hearing on the consent decree between the Department of Justice and Ferguson that stemmed from Brown’s death, U.S. Senior District Judge Catherine Perry spoke to the parties in her courtroom on what has since changed in the last decade, CBS affiliate KMOV-TV reported.
“And I guess I would echo what others have said here today, that the changes that are happening in Ferguson, in the court system and in the police system and in the engagement with the community, these are things that are necessary for fully providing the constitutional rights that the Constitution guarantees to all citizens,” Perry said.
“A new look” for policing
Troy Doyle was a veteran St. Louis County police officer who worked in Ferguson during the 2014 protests. Nearly a decade later in April 2023, Doyle, who is Black, was hired as Ferguson’s chief – the latest of several hires since Tom Jackson resigned in 2015, following the Justice Department report.
Back in 2014, Ferguson had roughly 50 white officers, but just three Black officers. Today, 22 of Ferguson’s 41 officers are Black. Only four officers who were on staff in 2014 remain. Officers today are trained on implicit bias, de-escalation and community relationship building.
Doyle said he has worked hard to change the mindset of officers who might be resistant to the court-imposed requirements. He even replaced uniforms and changed the look of patches, badges and police cars, worried that the old look was “triggering” for many residents.
“For some people who live in the community, every time they saw a Ferguson police officer, it brought back memories,” Doyle said. “I wanted to give us a new look, but part of that new look was to let people know it was a new police department.”
Michael Brown Sr. said he’s noticed the change.
“It’s a weight that’s been lifted up off the Black community in terms of stop-and-frisk and assessing tickets,” Brown said. “There’s a lot of things that still need to get done. Those things are not promised overnight. It’s a process.”
More jobs and a helping hand
Some companies and organizations stepped in to create jobs and opportunities after the unrest in Ferguson, which brought more awareness of economic challenges in the community.
Centene Corp. opened a managed care service center in Ferguson in 2016, creating about 250 jobs. But after the COVID-19 pandemic and a move to virtual work, the center closed. In April, Centene donated the $25 million building to the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis for early childhood programs, workforce assistance and other services.
Bob Clark, founder of the St. Louis-based construction company Clayco, in 2015 created the Construction Career Development Initiative. Since then, 175 people have been placed in jobs in the construction industry. Among them is Malik Johnson. He was a high school student who was homeless at the time of Brown’s death.
“My reality was divorce. My reality was mom with breast cancer, homeless, going hungry,” Johnson, 28, recalled. “Not knowing what tomorrow looks like.” Now, he’s married, employed as a pipefitter and planning a family.
But challenges remain
After serving three terms as mayor, Knowles left office in 2020 due to term limits.
Knowles frequently meets for breakfast with Ella Jones, who was elected as Ferguson’s first Black mayor in 2020 and reelected last year. They both acknowledge that race relations remain a struggle.
“The city is turning back,” Jones told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It really is. Everything here is along racial lines.” The City Council has four white members and three Black members, and little gets done, she lamented.
Knowles sees that, too. He also worries about public safety as many drivers – aware police are less likely to pull them over – flaunt traffic laws.
He also believes too much money is being spent on the consent decree – money he believes would be better spent on fixing streets, hiring more officers and restoring crumbling parks.
The place where Black Lives Matter took off
Karla Scott, communications professor and former African American Studies program director at St. Louis University, said Ferguson will survive because its residents are resilient and proud of their community, even after all it has gone through.
“But I think it will always be the sort of epicenter for many of us who can remember where we were when we heard the news, or for people who went out there to stand in solidarity, to march in solidarity, to make their voices heard,” Scott said. “It will always be that place where the Black Lives Matter movement really took off.”
CBS News
Boeing machinists vote to accept labor contract, ending 7-week strike
Boeing’s 33,000 unionized machinists on Wednesday voted to approve the plane manufacturer’s latest contract offer, ending a seven-week strike that had halted production of most of the company’s passenger planes.
The union said 59% voted to accept the contract. Members have the option of returning to work as soon as Wednesday, but must be back at work by Tuesday, November 12, the union said in a statement.
Union leaders had strongly urged members to ratify the latest proposal, which would boost wages by 38% over the four-year life of the contract, up from a proposed increase of 35% that members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) had rejected last month.
The revised deal also provides a $12,000 cash bonus to hourly workers and increased contributions to retirement savings plans. The enhanced offer doesn’t address a key sticking point in the contentious talks — restoration of pensions — but Boeing would raise its contributions to employee 401K plans.
Average annual pay for machinists, now $75,608, would climb to $119,309 in four years under the current offer, Boeing said.
The vote came after IAM members in September and October rejected lesser offers by the Seattle-based aerospace giant.
“In every negotiation and strike, there is a point where we have extracted everything we can in bargaining and by withholding our labor,” the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers stated last week in backing Boeing’s revised offer. “We are at that point now and risk a regressive or lesser offer in the future.”
Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su has played an active role in the negotiations, after recently helping to end a days-long walkout that briefly closed East and Gulf Coast ports.
The Boeing strike that began on Sept. 13 marked the latest setback for the manufacturing giant, which has been the focus of multiple federal probes after a door plug blew off a 737 Max plane during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. The incident revived concerns about the safety of the aircraft after two crashed within five months in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people.
Boeing in July agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud for deceiving regulators who approved the 737 Max.
During the strike, Boeing was unable to produce any new 737 aircraft, which are made at the company’s assembly plants in the Seattle area. One major Boeing jet, the 787 Dreamliner, is manufactured at a nonunion factory in South Carolina.
The company last month reported a third-quarter loss of $6.1 billion.
contributed to this report.
CBS News
11/4: CBS Evening News – CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
CBS News
11/4: The Daily Report – CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.