Faith after Ferguson

Resilient Leadership in Pursuit of Racial Justice

Leah Gunning Francis

• Publisher: Chalice Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780827211452
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

"Faith after Ferguson should be a source of comfort and inspiration on the long road ahead."–Foreword ReviewsLeah Gunning Francis (Ferguson and Faith, 2015) revisits the clergy and activists from the front lines of the Ferguson, MO, Black Lives Matter protests, to hear what they've learned in the struggle for justice and healing five years later. Weaving the personal accounts of more than a dozen activists and clergy with her own experiences, Francis offers profound new insights on faith-filled living in response to social injustice as well as lessons for organizing and mobilizing people to effect real change.Learn from the courageous and resilient leaders on the front lines for justice and discover new ways of leading in the movement for racial justice.

Chapter 1: This is Us

“Let me be very clear. The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America, do not represent who we are!” said President-elect Joe Biden as he stood resolutely to condemn the US Capitol invasion on January 6, 2021. Thousands of people, at the behest of President Trump, had made their way to Washington, DC, to object forcefully to the certification of the election of President-elect Joe Biden and the first woman Vice President-elect, Kamala Harris.

Since the election was called for Biden and Harris on November 7, the President had ramped up his “Stop the Steal” movement that claimed him to be the victim of an allegedly rigged election. In citing mostly Black and Latinx jurisdictions in Atlanta, Detroit, and Philadelphia (to name a few) as the scenes of the crimes, he played into the racist stereotype that “those people” could not be trusted.5

On the morning of November 7, President Trump tweeted an alert that his lawyers would hold a press conference at Four Seasons in Philadelphia at 11:00 a.m.; however, the posh downtown hotel had no press conference on its schedule. The president soon deleted that tweet and clarified the location of the press conference that officially launched the “Stop the Steal” movement: The Four Seasons Total Landscaping parking lot in northeast Philly, next door to an “adult” bookstore and across from the street from the Delaware Valley Cremation Center. Rudy Giuliani, former NYC mayor turned Trump attorney, claimed massive voter fraud. Yet after snaking their case through multiple courts, no fraud was to be found anywhere. However, “alternative facts” were one of the hallmarks of this administration, so its cronies were not deterred by the legal rulings.

President Trump and his surrogates continued to claim voter fraud and strongly encouraged his supporters to meet in DC on January 6. During his speech before the massive crowd, he refused to concede and encouraged them to walk to the Capitol to “try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help, we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.6” When the crowd arrived at the Capitol sans the president, they were met by the Capitol police, who were quickly overwhelmed by the size and aggressiveness of the crowd. Surprisingly, there were no National Guard members staggered on the Capitol steps like they had been on the Lincoln Memorial steps during a peaceful protest of the death of George Floyd.7 As a result, Capitol police were pushed, shoved, beaten, and quickly overrun by the mob rushing up the Capitol stairs. However, none of these officers felt sufficiently threatened or feared sufficiently for their lives to fire their weapons. As the insurgents busted out windows and forced their way into the Capitol, Vice President Pence was whisked away to an undisclosed location. Congress members took cover as best they could as rioters invaded and vandalized the building and accomplished a feat that the Confederate Army could not: marching the Confederate flag through the US Capitol. Five people died that day and scores more were physically and psychologically injured. However, some of the insurrectionists were able to take selfies with Capitol police before they moseyed out of the building like tourists.

My response to President-elect Biden’s defiant statement about this not being representative of who we are is adamant: This is who we are. And until we resolve to open our eyes and see the truth that is staring back at us, we will continue to fall prey to the belief that we are “better than this.” History does not support that claim. The scores of unarmed Black people that police have killed since Ferguson doesn’t give that claim a leg to stand on. The pervasiveness of poverty, and its corresponding effects, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world would prevent that case from holding up in a court of law. And these are just a few of the rationales that contest that myth.

For me, the truth is not that we are “better than this,” but that we can and should be “better than this.” In tragic irony, the Capitol invasion happened on Epiphany, the day that the Christian church celebrates the Magi’s visit to the newborn Jesus. The word epiphany in Greek can be translated as a manifestation, an appearance, or to come suddenly into view. A person says, “I had an epiphany” to describe an “aha” moment that brought clarity and insight to a situation.

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship.”8

As the Magi made their way to Jesus, King Herod summoned them under the false pretense that he too wanted to go and worship Jesus. He insisted that as soon as they found him, they come back and tell him where Jesus was located. The Magi followed the eastern star to find Jesus.

On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and incense and of myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.9

Thankfully, the Magi heeded the warning and did not go back to Herod. I have long been nudged by this text to remember that once you get some good and reliable intel, act on it—even if it means going in a different direction than planned.

What if we took the intel, or the truth, that was shown to us through the Capitol invasion and decided to return to our notion of being a country by another route? What if we let go of the myth that we are “better than this,” the idols of white supremacy and Christian nationalism, the lie of American exceptionalism and the bootstraps ideology, and instead charted a new course to become truly “better than this?” I imagine it wasn’t easy for the Magi to find a new route home. They probably had to ask around to find Jesus’ house. I can only imagine how hard it was to figure out how to sneak out of town without running into King Herod or his posse. But they knew they couldn’t go back the same way. Neither should we. If we are determined to follow a pathway toward a future filled with hope and flourishing for all, we cannot get there by traveling the well-worn road of racism. Instead, we must chart a new course that challenges the status quo, heeds the voices of those who have been marginalized and dehumanized, yet realize that this will become the path of most resistance. Empire will strike back. However, the stories throughout this book remind us that ordinary people have banded together to do extraordinary things to make a difference. You can too.

We Have Become an Organizing City

The Ferguson uprising in 2014 sparked a renewed wave of sustained movements for racial justice. Various forms of protest occurred in the months and years following the killing of Michael Brown throughout the St. Louis region. One of the questions I routinely receive is “What has changed in St. Louis?” While there are myriad ways to answer this question, the organization and mobilization efforts are notable.

Brittany Ferrell is an activist, mom, nurse, and scholar who was an early and long-standing fixture on the frontlines in Ferguson. Since the Ferguson uprising, Brittany has earned a Master in Public Health from Washington University and is currently a PhD student in their Nursing Science program. Her resilience is reflected in her ongoing justice work that includes the professional integration of health and wellness for Black people. She says:

One thing that has changed in St. Louis is that we have become an organizing city. We now have organizations like Action St. Louis, The Bail Project, and Arch City Defenders who are doing great organizing work. Action St. Louis was campaigning to get Bob McCulloch out of office and was very successful in doing that with the #ByeBob campaign—with Bob McCulloch being the prosecutor who was in office when Michael Brown was murdered and who failed to find Darren Wilson guilty for killing Michael Brown. It’s been years of pushing back against the system, of organizing, of strategizing on how we can get even a small victory out of such a tragic, tragic story.

Getting Bob McCulloch out of office was a big win not just for Michael Brown and Ferguson and St. Louis but for people around the country to watch how a movement has made strong, tenacious organizers who have found something in themselves that has kept them in doing this work for so many years—even when everyone has left, when all of the cameras have left, when all of the writers are no longer doing stories on Ferguson or St. Louis. People are still doing that work and so that was a huge, huge, huge win.

The resources are now coming into young, Black-led organizations. Kayla Reed is leading Action St. Louis where most of ...

Table of contents

• Praise for Leah Gunning Francis Faith After Ferguson
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Timeline of Selected Events Since the Ferguson Uprising
• Chapter 1: This is Us
• Chapter 2: The Fire This Time
• Chapter 3: Words Create Worlds
• Chapter 4: Bitter Dregs of Discomfort
• Chapter 5: Holy Boldness
• Chapter 6: Finding Joy
• Chapter 7: Reclaiming Our Time
• Epilogue
• Praise for Leah Gunning Francis and Ferguson & Faith
• About the Author