The St. Louis Massacre

In the history of the antebellum south, Missouri was both a free and slave state. Conspicuously tucked under Lincoln’s home state, Missouri was the anomaly of the new union. The state sent representatives to both sets of government. German immigrants, staunchly opposed to slavery, populated Missouri and Confederate sympathizers who saw no place for Black people in the state.

Because of these tensions, pro secessionists and Union supporters came to a bloody head on May 10 1861 in what was penned the St. Louis Massacre.  Union soldiers fired upon an innocent man. In retaliation, the population of the port city erupted in riots.

1861. It was a long time ago. But only if you measure it in years.

On August 9^th 2014 Michael Brown, a teenager, was shot to death by Ferguson Missouri police officer Darren Wilson. He was unarmed and shot with his hands up. His body was left in the street for 6 hours.  Almost immediately after the altercation, Ferguson exploded in riots and unrest. Soon after, a state of emergency is declared. Politicians converged upon the city, as well as news crews and opportunists looking to turn the tragedy of this boy’s death into a windfall of MSNBC appearances and bylines in the New York Times.

Young people took to the streets of Ferguson, angry, embittered, joined by people all across this country who wanted to come and participate in a moment that would become the cusp of the new Black revolution, the movement whose catalyst wore the face of an unassuming Black boy named Trayvon, and evolved into a fully-bodied armor of a hulking suit of a man-child named Michael Brown.

Hands up. Don’t shoot- now an anthem, sung out by a chorus of sign holding protestors that take to the street to remind the world that Black lives matter. Protestors who took to Ferguson Blvd, singing out their soundtrack in the midst of a bloody and expensive tumult that cost this city hundreds of millions of dollars and prompted the government to declare a state of emergency.

I arrived in Ferguson Missouri on Saturday afternoon.  West Florissant Ave, spread wide against the flatness of Missouri’s geography, is a two way street housing Pay Day loan facilities and Checkers Chicken spots. There is a Public Storage facility across from a church. Red’s Original BBQ sits across from Krispy Kreme. I noticed so many food stores I wanted to throw up.

What I didn’t notice was what I came to the city looking for.

People. The streets were almost completely empty. There was a quiet unease about the town, an unease that comes with emptiness.

I remember when I was a young teacher, standing on a Harlem street, watching in disbelief, 140 blocks south, as two billowy opaque black clouds ascended into a beautiful September sky where the Twin Towers used to be.
For days after, New York City seemed unpeopled, mute. As if opening your mouth or walking down the street would imply that you were complicit in the catastrophic tragedy.

This is what Ferguson felt like as I drove down West Florissant Ave.

It felt like I was traversing on a giant, precarious scab. If I drove too fast, if I called out too loud, the scab would slip, and the bloody mucus would ebb to the surface and cover me.

Suffocate me.

Choke me to death.

I can’t breathe.

I drove down to Church Street where the Ferguson City hall was. Saturday was a humid bright afternoon, warm and welcoming. I stopped in front of the building and took pictures. No one stopped me. In Fact, no one was outside. It’s Saturday, in August, when the sun is highest in the sky, and the streets are completely empty.

It looks like a ghost town, but with ghosts who are tired.

I drove down a street that lead me to signs, they said, I love Ferguson, paid for by the friends of Ferguson inc. These signs sat on sweet looking homes, almost palatial.

I drove down further into the town and came upon the police dept.

The building was gated. Protected by concrete barriers and metal gates.

As if the police needed protecting.

When I jumped the gate to take pictures I noticed that one on of the concrete barriers someone wrote, REST IN PEACE MICHAEL BROWN.

Two fire trucks passed me, and I almost fell when I was trying to jump the cop fence.

No one stopped me. No cops came out of the precinct to ask me what the hell I was doing there. I don’t even know if there were any cops in there.

I know what I was expecting when I came here. It was not to come upon the set of the Walking Dead.

Ferguson is not an exclusively Black city, much like most urban metropoli in each state.

The Blacks are not running around with scepters dipped in grape Kool aid walking on rose petals sewn together with human hair weave.

There are white people in this city. In fact, the white neighborhood is the place where you will see the I LOVE FERGUSON signs in abundance. On West Florissant Ave and Ferguson Blvd, where there is an influx of Black homes, there are no signs. There is nothing.

Where is this city? Where are the young people holding signs? Where are the oath keepers looking to arm the black citizens? Where are the angry masses singing swansong of the movement, HANDS UP DON’T SHOOT!?

Where is Rachel Maddow?

Where is Al Sharpton?

I wanted to touch down in this city and be welcomed by sweet protest. I wanted to be pulled out of my car by over zealous cops who were frightened into violence as soon as they saw my black car and black face.

But I was not sated. I was left out. I felt like Ferguson abandoned me.

Much like the faces of the people of this city I longed to see contorted in anger, I was pissed off. I didn’t want to be happy. I felt empty and malcontent for a place that had the opportunity to truly change the tempo of the radical racial song that blared out through the stereo of the Midwest- the confederate flag holding license plates, the segregated proms, the police shooting unarmed Black people.

On Monday, Talib Kwali gave a free concert here. Common was here, as well as a whole bunch of celebrities looking to have conversations with young people and police officers. I wasn’t here to get autographs or videotape live music to upload to you tube. But it doesn’t matter. I missed the show.

What’s worse, what made my stomach feel hollow and hot was that the show does not go on. Because of what happened to Michael Brown and the discovery of the systemic racial practices of the police in this city and everywhere in this country, I wanted the show to never end. I wanted there to be a fire burning in the middle of town like the Olympics.

But the conversation had stopped. The fire was out.

Nothing.

It was a feeling I could not shake as I drove down Durst Ave to check into the dirtiest Days Inn I have ever seen in my life.

The next morning I woke up and scrubbed all the truck stop Days Inn dirt off my body.

I was ravenous. I get that way when I am angry. Or maybe it was the other way around.

I left the dirt hotel early with the concerted plan to get the fuck out of the city, since I had a 14-hour drive ahead of me to get to South Dakota. Back on West Florissant Ave, I drove past 1^st Baptist Church of Ferguson. It was the only time in this city where I saw a dearth of Black people. Black people going to church-dressed in church garb-high hats, children in suit pants and ties, pretty little Black girls with pressing curls blowing in the breeze of a bright Sunday summer morning.

I stopped, even though I was in jogging shorts, I went in.

The church was neither a megaplex or a humble wooden structure with just a steeple. The pews were comfortable, but not inviting. The people inside smiled, hugged each other and laughed like they were genuinely happy to see one another.

Minutes passed and row after row became fuller and fuller. I looked around. It wasn’t just full of Black people. It was full of everyone.

It was like the city, with all its population, shapes and colors, were waiting for this morning.
This service.

The organ began to play.

“We’ll understand it, better by and by…”

The choir came out and started to sing. Speckled with brown and white faces, they clapped in synchronicity as the congregation swayed and touched hands.

Pastor Stoney Shaw stepped out from the pulpit as if he had gold in his pockets. This was a face of a man with unabashed joy. Even amidst the emptiness and the strained race relations and negative media attention that inundated his city, He strode out to greet his followers with a look on his face of perfect peace.

Maybe it was because he was white.

Stoney Shaw is a pastor who has long been vocal about what has been happening in Ferguson.

“The city cannot go back to what it was after this, it mustn’t.” His words have been quoted in the paper. His actions charted online, opening up nights of prayer for the city and bringing in children to the church when school was canceled.

Pastor Shaw stood up beaming at his audience after the choir finished singing. He thanked everyone for coming. He blessed them for being brave and courageous as Christians. Then he prayed.

He prayed for the people of Ferguson. He prayed for their healing and then prayed for the families of the loved ones hurt. He stood silently for a minute. I opened my eyes and I saw some of the congregants crying.

“Healing does not exist in a vacuum. Neither does Christianity”, he preached.

“If you love, truly love as Jesus loved, then you must pray for those you love, and those who do not love you. This is what is missing now, here. We have no love for each other. If you truly love man, as you want to be loved, you would not run in the street destroying people’s property. If you truly loved the way Jesus loved, you would not burn down the place where you live.”

“If you truly loved the way you want to be loved, you wouldn’t shoot an unarmed boy to death.”

When he said it I felt the palpable inhale, the holding of breath in the congregation, and then the release. The crying out. The entire building exhaled in “YES” and there was a roar, a spirit that flew from under the pews into the air and filled the empty spaces with a validation that I sought outside these walls for the past 24 hours. But could not find until now.

The chorus started singing again.

Peace be still.

 As the collection plate went around, I couldn’t stop crying.

An older woman who looked like my third grade teacher, Ms. Pfeiffer, put her arms around me.

“There darling. Amen.”

She was a portly white woman with a peach cheeked smile and curly hair.

After the service, I wasn’t as hungry, but still needed food. I followed my GPS towards the outskirts of town and passed a coffee house about 3 blocks away from the police station.

The Corner Coffee House is a Middle America mom and popshop that sells everything from espresso to crepes. It’s quaint, unassuming, you would miss it if you were looking for it.

I came upon it easy, as if I was supposed to.

When I walked in, 3 teenage white girls were behind the counter. A Black family was having brunch. An interracial couple was arguing over coffee or tea.

A group of older women, 3 white, 2 Black, discussed an obscure book that I never read.

I sat down and ordered the eggs special and an espresso. And watched.

I wasn’t expecting a powder keg like I had 24 hours ago. I was just expecting people.
That is exactly what I got. The Black family was taking their daughter to the University of Missouri after their breakfast. The book club ladies wished the girl luck. As they did, I watched the father, beam with pride and hug his daughter. The couple in the booth kissed and drank tea. One of the teenage girls behind the counter screwed up my eggs. She apologized and gave me my espresso for free.

No one seemed to seethe with the anger I longed to see. They were just people on a Sunday morning. Navigating their life in the midst of a tragedy that has now labeled their home as a hotbed of the new civil rights movement.

When I finished my breakfast and got back on the road, the streets were still quiet.

As I was leaving, I took one more picture of the vast, clear road that took me to I 284 West.

Maybe it was the church. Maybe it was the food. Maybe it was the emptiness of the town against the backdrop of the beautiful morning. But I felt an immense sense of peace.