A decade of racial justice activism changed politics, but groundbreaking reforms remain elusive

washington – Cori Bush gone from helping to lead informal movement for racial justice To winning two terms as a congressman from Missouri with an office decorated with photos of families who lost loved ones to police brutality. One of the photos is by Michael Brown.

Brown’s The death in Ferguson, Missouri, 10 years ago was a defining moment for him. America’s racial justice movement. It shines a global light on long-standing demands for reform to systems that subject millions of people to everything from economic discrimination to murder.

Many activists, like Bush, went from chanting “Black Lives Matter” to running for and winning seats in government offices, city halls, prosecutors’ offices, and the halls of Congress. Local legislation has been passed to make everything demolition of prisons and jails And reforming schools eliminate hair discrimination.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, at least 30 states and Washington, D.C., have enacted laws aimed at curbing abusive behavior since 2020. More than three dozen activists, elected officials and political operatives told The Associated Press that while racial justice activism has transformed politics over the past decade, landmark reforms remain elusive.

“When we look at the progress we’ve made, it’s been up and down,” said Bush, who was a longtime community organizer and pastor before becoming a Democratic representative. “We are still dealing with militarized policing in communities. “We are still dealing with police attacks.”

Ten years of activists’ achievements

Issues of public safety and racial justice have moved to the center of American politics as a new generation of cellphone-wielding Black activists rewrites the national debate over policing. Police body cameras are common. Tactics such as choking It was banned across the country.

Svante Myrick, who served as the youngest mayor of Ithaca, New York, from 2011 to 2021 before becoming president of People for the American Way, a progressive advocacy group, said Ferguson brought about an abrupt shift in how communities tackle police reform and address abuses. He said he opened it. group.

At least 150 reforms passed in localities and states across the country.

“I know that someone’s life was saved, that a police officer was present, and that there was an encounter that an officer would have made a different decision if it weren’t for 400 days of protests during the Ferguson uprising,” Bush said in an interview. “Maybe the world was waking up to the fact that this couldn’t just be a strategy from the outside, it had to be a strategy from the inside.”

An example of this is Tishaura Jones. first black woman St. Louis’ “arrest and incarceration” model of policing and put more emphasis on social service programs to help neighborhoods with the highest crime rates. Leading the city of St. Louis.

This is a model that a new generation of leaders is implementing across the country.

“I am someone who entered politics through the Black Lives Matter movement after years of witnessing unjust murders against Black and brown people,” said Chi Ossé, a 26-year-old member of the New York City Council.

He used social media to organize protests for racial justice following the killing of white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin george floydIn 2020, the Black one sparked a massive new wave of protests. “This has resulted in me having a different leadership style in my community than the previous City Council members who represented this district.”

There’s work to be done

Lawmakers in Washington were at first wary of the Black Lives Matter movement.

In 2015, then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told three Black Lives Matter activists that they should focus on changing laws instead of hearts. A 2016 memo from the House Democratic campaign arm told politicians to limit the number of Black Lives Matter activists at public events or meet with organizers privately.

Ferguson marked a new phase. Perhaps for the first time, a highly visible mass protest movement for justice for a single victim arose organically—it was not clergy-assembled or church-centered—and often connected to mobile phones and sustained by hip-hop.

Brown’s death and the treatment of Black Lives Matter protesters in the days that followed also led to the deaths of many Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. to an internal reckoning. Organizations and individuals of all ages were encouraged to step aside.

“We’ve had gains,” Bush said. “I wanted to take the movement to the House of Representatives and I feel like I was able to do that.”

A movement meets a national political shift

By 2015, Ferguson activists were welcomed into the White House to work on the Obama administration’s policies. 21st Century Policing Task Force.

While Donald Trump embraces some criminal justice reforms First Step ActHe continued to oppose racial justice activists throughout his administration, and the movement was met with disdain on the right. In 2016, the then-Republican presidential candidate called Black Lives Matter “divisive” and blamed President Barack Obama for worsening race relations in the country.

Trump was president during the racial justice protests that emerged in the summer of 2020 after Floyd was killed in Minneapolis. HE sent During the protests, it was said, “When the looting starts, the armed attack also starts.” At that time he signed administrative order It promotes better police practices but has been criticized by some for failing to acknowledge systemic racial bias in policing.

At the beginning of his term, A speech given in New York in 2017Trump appeared to advocate harsher treatment of people in police custody and spoke disparagingly about the police practice of shielding the heads of handcuffed suspects as they are placed in patrol cars.

Trump’s election caused many racial justice activists to shift their focus from individual police departments to how federal policies fund and protect police abuses.

George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis

Following a tough Democratic presidential primary in which candidates debated how best to advance racial justice, the movement turned to politics again. Chauvin killed Floyd In May 2020.

Global protests for racial justice have roiled American politics, shocking even many within the movement who have spent years advocating for suddenly mainstream policies such as community response teams for emergencies, restrictions on police tactics, and even the redirection of police funding.

Floyd’s family members attend the 2020 Democratic National Convention following global protests; The following year, the party introduced a bill in his name that would enact sweeping reforms to police accountability.

The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants like the one that led to Louisville police killing Breonna Taylor in his own home. It would also create a database listing officers disciplined for gross misconduct, among other measures.

Parliament passed the law in 2021. However, the Senate could not reach a consensus.

Stand outside or be at the table

Ella Jones couldn’t see herself as a candidate before the Ferguson protests. Jones, a minister and entrepreneur, felt called to protest Brown’s killing but said local Democratic leaders told him to run for mayor of Ferguson. He won a seat on the city council and was eventually elected mayor.

“You can stand outside and yell at the system. But you need to be at the table where policy is made. So some people can go into politics. Some people may be tempted to start nonprofits, but it’s going to take all of us working together to make the change we really need,” Jones said. “You have to be at the table where the politics are made.”

Ferguson’s prosecutor, Wesley Bell, has vowed to fight police misconduct.

Bell told the AP in 2020 that lawmakers should look carefully at laws that provide protection against prosecution for police officers that regular citizens cannot afford.

“We see these types of laws across the country, and it’s something that handcuffs prosecutors in a variety of ways when you go to prosecute police officers who use unlawful force or shoot at police,” Bell said.

in august beat Bush He’s in a tough Democratic primary for the U.S. House.

Bush said he didn’t know what he would do after leaving Congress.

“But the fight is still going on and my boots are not far from me,” he said. “So people probably had to wonder: Who is more dangerous in Congress or outside Congress?”