Why Ferguson Was the Beginning

David Whitt sat on his bicycle when he heard the awfully familiar sound. “[Police] put the siren on” and forced him to stop, the 34-year-old remembers. Whitt lives in Ferguson in the Canfield Green Apartments, where Michael Brown also lived — and where the black teenager was killed by white police officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9, 2014.

When the police stopped David Whitt this summer, Brown was still alive, and Whitt drove to the supermarket twice that day. “I forgot the Pampers for my two-year-old son. I had to take back some groceries, cuz we needed a couple of extra dollars,” he said. The police officer searched through his shopping bag and wanted to see his receipt, as well as Whitt’s ID to determine whether or not he had outstanding warrants. “I told him, ‘that’s illegal, you’re violating my rights,’” said Whitt. “’I have not broken the law. You ain’t got probable cause for nothing.’ He told me, ‘I can cite you for not wearing a helmet.’”

The U.S. has no requirement regarding wearing a helmet and Whitt knows that, but he didn’t risk a fight. He was eventually allowed to continue, but four months later, he still gets upset about the incident. “It happens all the time. It is degrading how the police treat us,”* complains Whitt. You regularly hear such stories if you speak with residents in the northern metropolitan region of St. Louis, where Ferguson is located.

It is unsurprising that the protests against police brutality have spread from here over half of America, and have been in progress for more than 140 days.

The activists, primarily from St. Louis, organize regular events and assure that they will only stop when they see a “real difference.” “We have a sad and ugly history of racism and segregation of white and black in this area,”* said Terry Jones, a political scientist at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. There is hardly any other American metropolitan region where blacks and whites are more strongly separated than in St. Louis. “Ferguson is not worse than any other community in the region, but somewhere had to crack eventually.”*

“The System Is Breaking Good People”

One can hear stories about police harassment in front of Ferguson’s burned down McDonald’s, as well as at the hearings of the Ferguson Commission that is working out solutions to the deadlock. Here, black mothers report that they are afraid of [the day] their sons get driver’s licenses at 16: “As soon as they sit behind the wheel, they become targets.”*

Lawyer Michael-John Voss holds such opinions, by no means exaggerated. “What’s happening here is that this system is breaking good people,” he said. “These aren’t violent criminals. The difference is that they don’t have the money to pay the fines,” says Thomas Harvey, a co-founder of Arch City Defenders, along with Voss.

The “system” that Voss speaks of is the kind that Ferguson and dozens of municipalities in the region rely on to supplement their household: The goal is to distribute as many tickets as possible in order to raise revenues.

The 36-year-old Voss works for the non-government organization Arch City Defenders, which grants free legal service to the homeless and poor, and recently presented a 37-page white paper about police actions in the region.

The Arch City Defenders have analyzed official figures for Ferguson’s 21,000 citizens. Although only 67 percent of the citizens are black, 87 percent of citations went to African-Americans. The Ferguson Court issued 24,000 summonses to pay, an average of three per household. “This revenue represents almost 30 percent of the budget. It is the second biggest asset,”* said Voss.

He reports stories of clients who would be financially ruined because their car blinker was broken or they allegedly drove too fast. Because there are 91 cities in the county, many of which have their own court, the risk of being convicted of such an “offense” is extremely high. For example, there are exactly 16 towns along the 10-mile-long Natural Bridge Road, each of which can initiate separate processes for a driver’s lack of insurance.

The penalties imposed often amount to hundreds of dollars. Someone who can afford a lawyer to levy a plea on his behalf pays more, but the violation does not appear on his record. Someone who appears personally to pay the fine receives the next penalty, and at some point they will call the Arch City Defenders from prison. Michael-John Voss understands why many of the poor no longer believe in the law: “We are talking about violations with no victims, but people are detained. It is a debtor’s prison.”*

Significant Consequences for the Entire Family

An especially dramatic case is that of Nicole Bolden. The mother of three in Florissant had not paid her speeding ticket. When she was involved in a no-fault traffic accident in 2009, the police checked her data and discovered this outstanding ticket. Her sister could pick up the children before the sheriff took Bolden to jail.

While many municipalities have a municipal court, it only negotiates every two weeks. Someone who cannot pay bail must sit behind bars until the hearing. Like Nicole Bolden, they are liable to lose their jobs when they can’t show up at work. Due to the insignificance of the violation, the state of Missouri didn’t offer a public defender to explain the factors. To get out of jail, reports Voss, many clients go without a public defender to negotiate a reduction of the penalty, and plead unnecessarily guilty.

By pleading guilty, one officially becomes an offender, which has wide-reaching consequences. These “felons” are not allowed to vote in many U.S. states, they have no right to social housing and they can no longer receive food stamps. In addition, job-seekers are required to specify if they have previous convictions, which dramatically reduces the chances of getting a job — even if there is only a traffic offense behind it.

Moreover, it fails people who have part-time jobs in which they earn only $12,000 a year; it is extremely difficult to pay tickets that average $275. “It often comes to the decision of whether to buy food for the children or pay the next installment,”* says Voss. Naturally, most people think about their sons and daughters first. Many black people in Ferguson are aware of this discrepancy: 22 percent of the population relies on food stamps. Similarly, many live below the poverty line; among children it is 35 percent.

“We are living from paycheck to paycheck,”* said David Whitt. When there are jobs, they are often so far away that half the salary is spent on gasoline. This is true for Whitt and the residents of the Canfield Green Apartments, as it is for all Americans who have little or no education. For them — regardless of skin color — there are fewer and fewer jobs in industry or trade. Those that remain are primarily part-time jobs.

Missouri’s Long History of Discrimination

It is difficult to assess how intensely each person is looking for a job. But the reasons African-Americans in and around St. Louis have a difficult time rising in the workforce date far back. In order to actually understand the situation, said political science professor Terry Jones, one has to go back to the Civil War of the 1860s. Missouri had long since been a slave state, but supported the victorious North during the Civil War. “St. Louis looked like a typical industrial city in the North, but it also had a lot of prejudice against the blacks, like in the Deep South,”* said Jones.

As long as industry boomed, more and more African-Americans moved to St. Louis. There was a strict divide between blacks and whites in schools and residential areas; equality only existed on paper. In 1916, the citizens of St. Louis voted on a law that required all blacks to live north of the main street, Delmar Boulevard. When the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional, all the white residents signed contracts with each other to make it a penalty to sell or rent homes to blacks.

These restrictive covenants were enforced in Missouri’s courts for decades, and cemented racial segregation. Brochures for homebuyers named the respective quarter and included its “proportion of Negroes.” Building regulations also prohibited building multi-family homes to make sure the whites kept to themselves.

“Blacks hardly had a chance to purchase property. It is the classic way to prosper in America: The property increases in value, ensures the education of children and can be inherited,”* said Terry Jones. Still today, the average white American has a 13 times greater chance to achieve than a black American. After 1968, blacks could buy property everywhere for the first time. This accelerated the trend of “white flight.” Whites moved farther and farther into the surrounding areas as the share of blacks increased in urban centers.

So, Ferguson has also changed. The city was a “sundown town” until the middle of the 1960s: When the sun set, all blacks had to disappear. A road to neighboring Kinloch, where many African-Americans lived, was barred with a chain; the other roads were only for pedestrians. “If a white man leaves or dies in places like Ferguson, then African-Americans are the only ones interested,”* clarified Terry Jones. Thus, their numbers increased more and more: In 1970, whites held a 74 percent majority; in 2010, the population of blacks had grown to 67 percent.

The Poorer the Citizens, the Worse the Schools

Because of the low capacity and high unemployment, residents in communities like Ferguson do not often have a lot of money. The consequences are enormous: America governs the level of fiscal revenue, how much is allotted for public transportation and above all, how much is spent on schools. Teachers are paid more in rich areas, and the schools have more resources at their disposal; in poor cities funding barely supports the necessary care.

Before Christmas, the committee of experts appointed by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon debated a reform of local courts. In addition, Attorney General Chris Koster sued 13 municipalities in St. Louis County whose budgets illegally consist of more than 30 percent of fines for traffic violations.

Nevertheless, it will take a long time until citizens like David Whitt can trust the police again. Whitt had help from a California-based organization to found the Copwatch Group. They film police in an effort to make sure the police follow regulations and conduct themselves better. Whitt has already distributed 210 cameras. The only thing that was actually new was the digital camera he wore around his neck. He says with a grin, “The police have been watching me for my entire life. Now I can finally document what happens here every day.”*

*Editor’s Note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.