I still remember where I was on August 9, 2014. I was working at my desk at the bank, taking a break from banking customers who were struggling to pay their mortgages. I scrolled on my phone hoping to pass the time on my favorite social media app at the time, Twitter. As I scrolled through my timeline, I came across an image that made me sit up in my chair. Those were long before a trigger warning or a sensitive warning. The image I saw was someone’s baby lying in the street with a pool of blood running down the cement beneath him. We would all discover that that baby in a matter of hours was Michael Brown Jr., and the street he was lying on was called Canfield Drive in Ferguson, Missouri.
This image I saw again and again, forever tarnished in my memory, was a cultural attack that would lead to a formidable movement called Black Lives Matter.
No one demonstrated to the world that black lives matter more than those in Ferguson, who were driven to protest in the streets and take courageous action to ensure the world never forgets what they did to a young black man for walking in the middle of the street. The courage it takes for a community to share its power with one another has inspired a generation of millions of people to take action – and never look back.
Their protest also inspired my own analysis and what I was willing to do to demand justice. Ferguson organizers taught us how to protest. The Women’s March and the racial reckoning that occurred during the summer of 2020 would not have happened without the Ferguson uprising that resulted from Brown’s death. For that, I believe we owe the Ferguson organizers more than a thank you. The righteous anger demonstrated there was the quintessential action that brought America into a long reckoning with the sins of its past, creating the space for the emergence of many movements that centered conversations about race, class and gender that still shape today. the world.
My infinite gratitude, admiration, respect and love for Ferguson is forever. And I pray that none of us forget.
Read more: How Ferguson woke us up
Ten years is a long time for most, but even longer for those of us who know what it’s like to lose someone – or even yourself. Ten years ago, I found myself homeless, without purpose, and deeply yearning for a new path forward. I thought there was no other option but to suffer and become a shell of myself.
I was deeply inspired by the people of Ferguson who looked like me and reminded me of my family – the community that used their voices to declare “Hands up, don’t shoot” as a rallying cry in response to the actions of a police officer who saw life black as disposable. It was the voices of the protesters in Ferguson that reminded me that I might be homeless, but I was not voiceless. It was that voice that took me far and wide, from the White House to communities across the country that lacked resources and support, just as it did 10 years ago.
Ferguson inspired me to never give up and never let anyone get in the way of creating what I knew was needed to sustain myself and my community. Many wanted me to believe that being black, poor, and transgender meant there was no space for me. And if I hadn’t seen women staring at armored trucks and millions of people taking to social media to join in dismay, anger and sadness, I probably would have believed the same. Ferguson taught me that there was no space where I didn’t belong. The only spaces I couldn’t align with were the spaces that didn’t believe in the humanity of all Black people. There was no compromise on that for me.
This realization led me to found the nation’s leading Black transgender organization exclusively dedicated to protecting and defending Black transgender lives, the Marsha P. Johnson Institute. We were born out of Ferguson’s anger and sadness. We are born out of the anger and sadness that grows upon learning of the ever-growing list of unarmed black people unjustly killed.
I remember who I was before I knew so many names and stories of injustice. I remember who I was before the Marsha P. Johnson Institute. And I remember who I was before Ferguson. I was young, free, lost, scared, but optimistic that the world believed in young black men like me. However, over the last 10 years I have learned to question this truth. With the rise of anti-trans legislation and the regular occurrence of unjust murders of unarmed people of color, like, most recently, Sonya Massey, we are constantly reminded that our fight still continues.
Read more: The Illusion of Security in Policing
I will always remember that Ferguson saved me and gave me a model for everything I could be as an organizer and, more importantly, as a black woman. Although there were many sleepless nights filled with anxiety and doubt, along with countless tragic losses – including several murders and deaths of activists I admired and whose insights will guide me forever – I never forgot that Ferguson’s dark imagination led a movement of resistance that changed the way we talked about politics and race in America. So much so that unprecedented news is still happening today – like Vice President Kamala Harris announcing her candidacy for president.
Great efforts have been made to disrupt the power of a community like Ferguson and its influence on people like me, who need a reminder that our lives do matter. That we should fight hard to preserve them. And that we didn’t and wouldn’t have to fight alone.
Black imagination was what drove us to join Ferguson in the streets and in our own communities – to take action as we discovered more and more names of Black people murdered by police. It was the dark imagination that led me to believe that, despite how terrible the results continue to be, we, as people who witnessed these atrocities, are indebted to the organizers of Ferguson for extending their humanity to all of us by taking courageous action. to stop the police. responsible for their mistakes.
Ferguson lit an unquenchable flame. In him, we saw ourselves more fully. And it sparked a global movement to encourage communities to seek freedom, security and justice for all. I am because we are. I’m because of Ferguson, Mo. Thank you for the tradition that will always be maintained.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
