At the "#BeyondFerguson" town hall panel, which was hosted by St. Louis Public Radio and took place at Wellsprings Church -- a frequent meeting spot for activists and political groups since last August -- a group of community leaders addressed the commission's final report. The 16-member, governor-appointed commission was tasked with studying the community and sharing the underlying causes for the unrest that followed the death unarmed black teenager Michael Brown last year. Brown was fatally shot by a white police officer, and his death sparked ongoing protests and a national discussion on racial inequality and police brutality in America.
Included in the crowd were individuals who support recalling Ferguson Mayor James Knowles, some of whom showed up in T-shirts reading "Recall Mayor Knowles" or "Our Signatures Matter." Earlier this year, a group of activists started a petition to launch a recall election. But in June, the St. Louis County Board of Elections said several of the petition signatures weren't valid, meaning the group was at least 27 signatures short of the 1,814 needed to call a recall election.
Former Ferguson City Council candidate Robert Hudgins has filed a lawsuit against the board. He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he believes all the signatures on the petition were valid.
Several people attending the discussion audibly chuckled when Knowles, one of the panel members, made comments about Ferguson's leadership being a democracy.
An audience member replied by saying democracy creates racial inequity.
"That democracy that you're talking about is what privileges the majority at the expense of the minority," says Emily #BeyondFerguson
— STL Public Radio (@stlpublicradio) September 22, 2015Knowles is a director of the St. Louis County Municipal League, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose goal is to strengthen the quality of municipal government. The group aims to represent the needs of municipal governments to higher officials and to assist governments "in their efforts to solve problems of contemporary urban life," according to its website.
Despite his connection with the municipal league, Knowles said on Monday night that activists should seek out Missouri lawmakers who can help with their causes rather than starting protests.
"Focus on two or three items that you think that you could make effective change and go out and find whoever or whatever accountable parties, councilperson or mayor, and take that opportunity to sit down and talk to them," Knowles said.
He went on to say activists should go to Jefferson City to "find that champion who will be helpful to you and your group to getting some subject to the legislature."
"Start with the the low-hanging fruit," Knowles suggested. "Find those things that people generally agree on, even though on the big things you might be far apart. I think you’ll help build a lot of bridges that way."
Audience members were not impressed just now w/ the lecture Knowles gave on how to get an agenda passed at the #moleg. #BeyondFerguson
— Rachel Lippmann (@rlippmann) September 22, 2015Harry Wallington, a 50-year-old Illinois resident, wore a "Recall Knowles" shirt to the town hall. He told The Huffington Post he thought Knowles displaced blame onto other politicians during the discussion.
"My main concern with Mayor Knowles is his prior knowledge -- his knowledge of activities in the police department, and him being complacent and not taking ownership of his actions," Wallington said.
During the discussion, Knowles reflected on growing up in Ferguson and said he was familiar with some of the ways certain areas were policed.
"Even when I was younger and in high school, we all knew where to slow down and where not to drive, and problems with police departments that people were concerned about," he said. "People had complained about this [for a while]."
In an interview with HuffPost earlier this year, Knowles said the Department of Justice report that found faults with his city's police department focused too much on race. "I don’t think that’s fair," the mayor said at the time.
Knowles again came to Ferguson's defense during the town hall discussion, highlighting that the city once made efforts to put an end to white flight.
"Most people don’t realize in the early '90s Ferguson was one of the only communities in St. Louis that spoke out on race and equality," he said. "Ferguson tried to take the lead when people were leaving in droves to go to St. Charles County."
Knowles added that he believes people have grown further apart in the last year, and that it's frustrating for him to see those divisions.
Wellsprings Church Pastor Willis Johnson countered the mayor's statement. "You've got to acknowledge how someone feels," he said.
"It's tiresome trying to explain why in the hell it's important that you let me live," he added, which earned him a standing ovation from the crowd.
Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com/
Author: Mariah Stewart
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