DAY #3

Ferguson, MO

Today (March 30)  we started the day handing out flyers all over Ferguson, we handed out many flyers for the city council forum that night. We also got to go to a local burger joint that had really good burgers. If a small local business, which the organization we are working with Operation Help or Hush tries to support as much as possible. After lunch we continued to hand out flyer and we had the opportunity to pass by the memorial of Mike Brown. As our group of us student past by we slowly started to get silent and stopped for a couple of minutes to pay our respects. The scene  was full of teddy bears both in the street and on the side walk.

(Memorial of Mike Brown)

(Students paying respect to the memorial of Mike Brown)

(Cross located on the side of the street)

After that we continued to hand out flyers having had a reminder why it is important for people be informed and vote on the local government. The city council that is to be elected can change a community drastically. The local government select the city manager, police chief and create new programs and establish local policies. So we went to every door to hand out flyers and we were able to talk to some residents that were really friendly and always said hi to us. Ferguson is just like your ordinary town only it is much warmer than Minnesota at this time which was a nice change. 

When we finally finished all handing out our last flyers we started walking back to meet up with the rest of the group and for the most part you would never be able to tell that something tragic happened in Ferguson, however the evidence of the incident after August 9th still were visible in some areas.

(A gas station completely burned down)

(image from a closed down business)

However the community here is resilient you can tell by the dedication of their residents and even more by the voices I heard at the city council forum where candidates from all 3 wards of Ferguson were voicing their concerns on the issues that any other city has. The debate was pretty intense and got very heated at some points. But I personally feel I learned a lot by of the community I would be working in for the next week.

(Candidates for city council for Ferguson)

I learned a lot of things today and even more from the reflection we had when arriving at our motel. The organizers and us started to have a to reflect of the forum and overall issues that affect black men in this country. The reflection lasted until one in the morning and we still had much more to say but it was time to call it a night.

(Picture from Ferguson: "The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation.")