From #Blacklivesmatter to Black Liberation

Taylor opens Chapter 6 with the assertion that Mike Brown’s murder by the Ferguson police department was a breaking point not only for Ferguson, but also for Black people around the country. Although she notes that there may be various reasons why Ferguson was a tipping point, she details the role that the police played in increasing the tension. The uprising began after police officers repeatedly disrespected the makeshift memorial that Ferguson residents constructed for Brown. In addition, the police constantly agitated protestors with tear gas and rubber bullets, threatened to murder unarmed demonstrators and journalists, and intentionally hid their badge numbers. Furthermore, the temporal proximity of other police murders of unarmed Black people around the nation made Ferguson a “focal point for the growing anger in Black communities across the country” (157). Many traveled to Ferguson to protest in solidarity.

However, Ferguson illuminated the fissures between newer and older generations of civil rights activists and leaders, as well as the role that the political establishment and those in proximity to it would play in trying to re-legitimize “law and order” and the federal government’s response to local situations. For example, the CBC showed up in Ferguson to try to increase voter rolls and push for electoral politics as the proper response to police violence.