It was Wednesday afternoon in Ferguson and business as usual at Clip Appeal, a local barbershop in the heart of what had been a protest and riot zone along West Florissant Avenue.
Since the protests and riots in the wake of the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a white police officer on Aug. 9, Clip Appeal has opened like clockwork, just like it has been doing since 1992. Other businesses haven’t been so fortunate. Throughout the block, shop owners were busy sweeping up glass and nailing boards on their windows in a desperate attempt to protect what was left.
“We have to stay open. This is our livelihood and we still have bills to pay,” stylist Buffi Blanchard said. “We were worried but we can’t lift the shop up and take it with us.”
Someone walks out of Clip Appeal and notes how lucky they were.
“We were not lucky,” Blanchard snapped. “We were blessed.”
More than two weeks after it was put on the map, after thousands of protesters descended upon the St. Louis suburb, after nightly riots and more than 200 arrests, the people of Ferguson are now trying to do what the shop owners are doing — sweep up the mess and rebuild.
“Let’s project five years from now,” said Brian Owens, a 34-year-old black musician, who has lived in Ferguson for six years. “We could see a community that took to heart the lessons of a tragedy and turned things around. … If we could come together as a people, that would inform everything. I know that sounds like a ‘We Are The World,’ Utopian cop-out. But that is how I feel.”
Brown’s shooting ripped open a festering wound. Blacks, who make up 67 percent of the 21,000-person population, have long complained that police harassment permeates the community.
Only three of the city’s 55 police officers are black, largely because whites control all aspects of government despite being the racial minority. Most of Ferguson’s black residents, by their own admission, don’t vote.
Last April, only 6 percent of the eligible black voters went to the polls for a primary.
Sitting on a golf cart at Canfield Apartments, just steps away from where Brown died, Yolonda Fountain-Henderson, the Democratic committeewoman in the area, shook her head.
“Why we don’t vote, I will never understand,” said Fountain-Henderson, who has been trying to register voters this week. “When I knocked on doors for the last election they said, ‘I’m good,’ ‘My vote don’t count,’ ‘I won’t vote because it doesn’t matter anyway.’ My question is how do you get people motivated and convince them that it is important?”
Fountain-Henderson said the unfortunate death of Brown might be the motivation the community needs. The mayor is white, there are no blacks on the school board, and only one of the city’s six council members is black.
“African-Americans are running for office,” said Phillip Harden, a 37-year-old therapist. “But the thing is getting African-Americans to vote, then we can get who we want in office.”
Shirley Scales, 65, moved to Ferguson from a neighboring community about a year ago and has not yet registered to vote. She said she’s ashamed.
“I regret it. I am angry with myself about it, but I will be voting from now on,” she said.
Owens, the musician, said he couldn’t imagine not voting. “But you can (also) vote every day with your life choices.”
Irving Lyttle has made some of those difficult life choices. He was at the Canfield Apartments this past week collecting and handing out supplies for weary residents. He admitted that he used to be a thug. He said he has been shot, has shot others and spent two years in the state penitentiary.
“But I had to change,” Lyttle said, “just like Ferguson is gonna have to change.”
‘LOOKING FOR AN EXCUSE TO LOOT’
In the first 12 days of unrest — where several rallies devolved into violence that forced police to use teargas — there were 204 arrests related to the protests, according to data provided by the St. Louis County Police Department. Arrestees booked in municipal jails are not included in these figures.
Between Aug. 10 and Thursday at 4 p.m., most were charged with “refusal to disperse.”
During his early morning press briefings, Missouri State Police Capt. Ron Johnson, who has been running the entire police operation in Ferguson since shortly after demonstrations erupted, stressed that many of the “agitators and criminals” were not from Ferguson.
That’s true. According to arrest records, only nine people had Ferguson addresses.
But while there were arrests of people from Georgia, Illinois, New York, Washington, D.C., Alabama, Iowa, Ohio and Texas — where one man from Austin was arrested three times — records show an overwhelming number of those arrested, 126, were Missouri residents.
They came primarily from the St. Louis area and towns such as Wentzville, Florissant, Berkeley and Jennings, as well as the city of St. Louis. In local terms, it would be as if unrest happened in East Point and people from College Park, Riverdale, Atlanta and Decatur also participated and got arrested.
But Blanchard, the hair stylist, is still skeptical that any of the looting was done by Ferguson residents, especially those living in the depressed edges of the city along West Florissant, where most of the damage occurred. Indeed, eight of the nine Ferguson residents accused of breaking the law were arrested by the county for refusal to disperse.
“This is not what the people of Ferguson want, because they depend on the businesses here,” said Blanchard, pointing at all the shops along the strip, including small markets, restaurants and a laundry. Even some of the businesses that were boarded up had signs reading, “We’re Open.”
“For many of them, this is as far as they can go because their resources are limited,” Blanchard said. “They wouldn’t destroy their own community.”
Anthony Jackson , who was getting his hair cut at Clip Appeal, echoed a familiar refrain that the agitators causing most of the violence were planted.
“I would say that 95 percent of the people are protesting for the same thing,” Jackson said. “They are not violent and listen to the police. The rest is a criminal element looking for an excuse to loot a store.”
WHITES ‘HAVE THE RIGHT TO GRIEVE TOO’
Against her parents wishes, Heidi Wallner, an 18-year-old freshman at the local community college, drove down to West Florissant one night to participate in the rallies. She recalls blasting Christian hip-hop from her car and making eye contact with a woman who had both hands up.
The most common refrain from the protesters is “Hands up. Don’t shoot.”
“After we made eye contact, I raised both my hands,” said Wallner, who is white. “She smiled at me.”
But Wallner conceded she could have easily avoided all of it.
“I live in a nice, all-American neighborhood, where people put their ear buds on and ignore this part of town,” she said. “But if everyone is made in the image of God … If Christ is the solution, I can’t not care.”
Robyn Ramsey, who has lived in Ferguson for 14 years, said the town’s racial problems are widespread, although, “this is a tragedy that I, as a white person, have the right to grieve too.”
Ramsey lives in a neighborhood that is racially mixed. “I wanted to put our kids in schools where there were black and white children. I don’t want to live in a white bubble. That is not reality.”
But Owens, the musician, who is black, said Ferguson might also be riven by class divisions. He doesn’t live in the area where the shooting occurred and pretty much avoids it because he never needs anything from there. Why would he? His part of town has a farmer’s market, fine restaurants, good parks and a strong library. Plus, one of the state’s oldest organic gardens is behind his house.
“Do they even know about it?” Owens said. “I’m just out here talking to people, because how we respond to this will determine our future. After the cameras leave, we gotta figure out how to minister to people. One thing I have learned is I do love my city and it is worth fighting for.”
The spot where Michael Brown died has become a pilgrimage destination. Motorists in hundreds of cars ride down the narrow street to get a glimpse of where his body lay for four hours. Celebrities and national figures have stopped by. Relief organizations have set up tents to register people for services.
Eleven-year-old Kahn Key stopped by with his mother, Shaunte Watson, to place a drawing on the shrine.
“I was told by God to draw this picture to tell everybody that this angel saved Mike Brown’s soul,” Key said. “I was sad for him. … I hope he is happy where he is now.”
Benjamin Anderson, 31, who used to live in Canfield Apartments before moving to St. Louis, said he sees change coming. He said blacks in Ferguson had become accustomed to their strange complacency.
Brown’s death and days of protests have changed that.
“If if didn’t impact us immediately, we let things happen,” Anderson said. “If Mike Brown beat up a cop and got killed as a result, none of this would be happening. But he had his hands up and was shot down in the street. You see? This changes everything.”
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