Faith after Ferguson: Resilient Leadership in Pursuit of Racial Justice
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About this ebook
Leah Gunning Francis (Ferguson and Faith, 2015) revisits the clergy and activists from the front lines of the Ferguson, MO, Black Lives Matter protests, to hear what they’ve learned in the struggle for justice and healing five years later. Weaving the personal accounts of more than a dozen activists and clergy with her own experiences, Francis offers profound new insights on faith-filled living in response to social injustice as well as lessons for organizing and mobilizing people to effect real change.
Learn from the courageous and resilient leaders on the front lines for justice and discover new ways of leading in the movement for racial justice.
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Faith after Ferguson - Leah Gunning Francis
Praise for Leah Gunning Francis Faith After Ferguson
I deeply appreciate the fresh, engaging ways in which Leah Gunning Francis calls us to regain a taste for racial justice and consider how to move from what is to what ought to be. She’s right: God has quite a bit to say about justice, and when we work towards forming Beloved Community it is the God who the Bible says, ‘is love’ who will lead us.
—The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, and author of Love is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times
"Leah Gunning Francis has written that rare book that is at once prophetic, pastoral, and powerful. In Faith After Ferguson, she holds a mirror to the face of America and shows us not just who we are, but who we ought to be. Every person who aspires to be fully human and whole, needs to read this book."
—Philip Gulley, Quaker pastor and author of If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus
With passion and scholarship, Leah Gunning Francis provides an unsparing truth about police violence and racial injustice in America. She pushes the faith community towards truth-telling and a commitment to racial justice and healing by sharing powerful, transformational stories of faith leaders and activists who are working for systemic change.
—Rev. Dr. Tracy S. Malone, Resident Bishop, Ohio East Episcopal Area, United Methodist Church
More than recounting what has happened in Ferguson, Missouri since Michael Brown was shot and killed by a white police officer, this book reminds us there is a steadily growing list of names and cities across America where unarmed black people continue to face a similar fate. Francis quotes Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel who said, ‘words create worlds.’ The words in this book create a world of understanding about one of the most urgent issues in our country.
— Marvin A. McMickle, PhD, President (retired) Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School
"Faith After Ferguson is the powerful record of a troubled ground spring bubbling to the surface. With masterful storytelling and an ability to keep recent history alive, Leah Gunning Francis weaves facts and timelines with poignant narratives of real people doing the hard work of troubling the waters of justice. She refuses to allow us to look away from the history we are making right now, and by doing so, she insists that we do better. This important work should be taken as the warning it is—otherwise, the generations that come after us will point to it and say, ‘Look. You knew. The prophets told you.’ Leah Gunning Francis is that prophetic voice, and this book is a cry in the desert for a justice that is too long in coming."
— Kerry Connelly, author, Good White Racist?: Confronting Your Role in Racial Injustice
In this powerful book, Dr. Leah Gunning Francis impels us to consider how far we have made odyssey towards achieving racial justice since the Ferguson uprisings of 2014. She centers the voices and experiences of the courageous activists and clergy who served on the front lines, compelling us to move beyond a mere awakening to faithful action as part of the ongoing liberation struggle for Black lives in America. This proves an essential text for all who seek in earnest to help bend the moral arc of the universe towards justice, and for it, I am exceedingly grateful. Dare to read only if you seek to transform and be transformed.
—Michael W. Waters, pastor, professor, activist, and award-winning author
Copyright ©2021 by Leah Gunning Francis
All rights reserved. For permission to reuse content, please contact Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, www.copyright.com.
Bible quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Cover art and design: Bidemi (Bd) Oladele
Interior design: Connie Wang
ChalicePress.com
Paperback: 9780827211445
EPUB: 9780827211452
EPDF: 9780827211469
To Evan, Desmond, Shayla and Rodney
Stay the course.
The best is yet to come.
Acknowledgments
I wish this book did not need to be written. I wish its impetus of white supremacy, systemic racism, and police violence against Black people did not exist. But it does. I wish all churches followed in the way of Christ and were actively resisting and dismantling racial injustice. But they do not. I wish that Black children were growing up in a society that recognized and valued their humanity in the same way as their white peers. But they are not.
It is through this split lens of the ought and the is that I share stories of individuals and faith communities that are pushing back against the forces of racism to help create a more just and equitable world.
My first acknowledgment is a prayer for all of the families and loved ones of those who have been killed and for survivors who live with the scars of emotional trauma. The stories we tell and the names behind hashtags are those of actual people who once lived, moved, and had their being in families, neighborhoods, schools, and communities all around this country. And they should all be alive today. Ferguson should still be a little-known suburb of St. Louis. But it is not. My prayer is for God’s peace of mind, body, and spirit for families and survivors, a peace that transcends understanding and enables them to keep on keeping on in the face of unimaginable pain and suffering. My hope is for this book to shine a small light on some of the ways that people are working to end police violence and racial injustice and that their example will entice and encourage others to join in.
This project would not have been possible without the first one, Ferguson and Faith: Sparking Leadership and Awakening Community. Leaders from Chalice Press and the Forum for Theological Exploration (FTE) got together and decided that we needed a book about clergy involvement in the Ferguson uprising and invited me to write it. The visioning and support of Brad Lyons and staff at Chalice Press and of Stephen Lewis, Dori Baker, and Matthew Williams at the Forum for Theological Exploration helped make that book idea a reality. I remain deeply grateful for the support and confidence that Chalice Press extended to me for this current project. Thank you, Brad, for your unwavering encouragement, and Deborah Arca, for the kind ways that you helped me think about the potential impact of this work. To my editor extraordinaire, Ulrike Guthrie: I am forever grateful for your wit, wisdom, and the skillful way that you helped me bring the manuscript to life. To our graphic designer, Connie Wang, and cover art designer Bidemi (Bd) Oladele, thank you so much for depicting this challenging story in such a beautiful way.
For the dozens of people who were willing to share their personal stories or those of their faith communities with me, I give thanks. It is not easy to permit yourself to become vulnerable and talk from a place that is intrinsic to the soul of your being. I loved spending time with each of you and listening to the different ways that you give voice to your experiences. Your stories made me laugh and cry, gasp, and grin. It was my deep honor and joy to hold space as you shared from your heart. Thank you!
When I wrote Ferguson and Faith, I lived in St. Louis and was a proud faculty member at Eden Seminary. The encouragement and support I received from the Eden community was exemplary. Now I serve as the dean at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis. Writing and deaning
don’t exactly mix well. However, the support of our president, Dr. David Mellott, and faculty has helped my writing process significantly. I am also heartened that so many of our students are wrestling with issues related to racial injustice and their implications for faith communities. Many are already engaged in praxis-oriented justice efforts as students, and I look forward seeing the work that is yet to come.
Lastly, my heart is filled with gratitude for my family and friends. I am blessed beyond measure to have such a wonderful community of love and support. My parents, Dan and Martha Gunning, laid the foundation of love and justice upon which I stand proudly today. My last living grandparent, Louise Drake, continues to be a source of strength and wisdom for this leg of my journey. My younger siblings, Carla and Drake, are always at the ready to dole out laughs at their sister’s expense. My beloved children are more wonderful than anything I could have ever imagined. And for the joy of my loving in-laws, extended family and many friends that are much more like family than acquaintances, I am grateful for the heart ties that bind us together.
When I was in my early thirties, I wasn’t sure if I would ever find a life partner. Then one day, out of the blue, my dear friend Greg Ellison said to me, Leah, I have someone I want you to meet.
And the rest is history. Rev. Rodney Francis and I have been married for fifteen fantastic years. Thank you, Rodney, for all of the love, support, and laughter you give each day. It would not have been possible for me to adequately care for Desmond and Evan, work full-time, and complete this project without all of your efforts. Thanks be to God for the wonderful gift of you.
Introduction
Mommy, has Michael Brown gotten any justice yet?
I froze. What was prompting our young son to ask this question?
Eight months had passed since a Ferguson police officer had killed Michael Brown. Had our son had a dream about Michael or about the ensuing Ferguson uprising? How should I respond?
I decided to tell him truth, gently.
No, son. Michael Brown hasn’t received the justice we were hoping for. But we’re going to keep working at it.
I didn’t burden him with the whole truth. I didn’t tell him that many people hoped the police officer who killed Michael would be held fully accountable, how they hoped that police departments around the country would immediately review their policies and protocols and enforce a de-escalation practice as a first line of defense. I couldn’t tell him of our hopes being dashed that we would not see this type of killing again—and again and again.
A police officer shot Ezell Ford in the back after being stopped while walking down a Los Angeles street.
Kajieme Powell was shot twelve times on a St. Louis sidewalk.
Laquan McDonald’s seventeen-year-old body lay smoking on a Chicago street, riddled with six bullets.
Within three seconds of arriving on the scene, police officers near Cleveland shot and killed twelve-year-old Tamir Rice who had been playing alone on a playground with a toy gun.
A police officer shot Walter Scott in the back in Charleston, South Carolina, and planted a taser next to his lifeless body.
Near Atlanta, a police officer shot and killed a completely naked Anthony Hill, a US Air Force veteran.
Freddie Gray died of spinal cord injuries police inflicted on him while in police custody in Baltimore.
Police stopped and arrested Sandra Bland for an alleged traffic violation. She died mysteriously in a jail cell in the tiny town of Waller County, Texas.
Police stopped Philando Castile, a Montessori school employee who knew every child’s name, for an unknown reason near St. Paul, Minnesota, and shot him six times in his car with his girlfriend and daughter only inches away.
Instead of helping him, police shot and killed Terence Crutcher beside his broken-down car in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
None of these incidents happened in the same city, town, or state. None of them happened at the same exact time of day. The victims varied in age and circumstance. The one thing they all had in common was the color of their skin. They were all African American. This is a hard truth to tell a child—and even an adult—but it is a truth that adults must confront if we are going to create a society that makes possible liberty and justice for all.
Just when we could not imagine how police contact with Black people could get any worse, in 2020 the world witnessed a Minneapolis police officer kneel on the neck of George Floyd, a Black man accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill, for 8 minutes and 46 seconds as Floyd begged him to stop. "Please man…I can’t breathe, Floyd muttered as he gasped for air. Bystanders begged the officer to stop.
He is a human being!" shouted one of the onlookers. For 8 minutes and 46 seconds the pleas fell on deaf and uncaring ears until Floyd took his last breath and lay unconscious on the asphalt at 38th and Chicago Avenue.
This public execution came on the heels of that of Breonna Taylor, a twenty-six-year-old ER technician in Louisville, Kentucky, whom police fatally shot in the middle of the night after they burst into her home allegedly looking for drugs, and the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a twenty-five-year-old who was jogging in the middle of the day while Black, whom neighborhood vigilantes deemed suspect
and shot to death in Brunswick, Georgia. All of this happened in the middle of a global pandemic known as COVID-19.
In the aftermath of Brown’s killing by a Ferguson police officer, a movement of resistance and resilience emerged, the likes of which had not been seen since the Civil Rights Movement. Young people took to the streets of the St. Louis region and were soon joined by people of all ages, colors, and abilities. News media outlets from around the world stationed themselves in the area for months. Social media platforms like Twitter (whose CEO and co-founder happens to be from St. Louis) became a go-to source for the most current and accurate information.
This movement for racial justice sparked by the killing of an unarmed young Black man was broadcast around the world in unprecedented ways; however, in this era the story was not controlled solely by corporate news media outlets. The pictures, videos, and live interviews that were provided by people who were participating in the marches or vigils offered an unfiltered look into the events as they were. There were no production managers or editorial directors working to frame their narratives to fit the goals of a news company’s agenda. Instead, the agenda of the street reporters
was to tell the truth as they saw it and give context and voice to what was happening.
It was the first time in history that the public was not largely dependent on news media outlets to learn about such a massive event.
In 1994, renowned Nigerian author and poet Chinua Achebe in an interview with the Paris Review talked about his journey to becoming a writer, storyteller, and social critic. He emphasized the importance of telling our own stories and said, There is that great proverb: until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
The victims of the hunt now have their own historians—bloggers, vloggers, Twitter users, and so on. The narratives about what happened that fateful day on Canfield Drive and the movement for racial justice that was born again in Ferguson were not confined to the news media and its pundits, to police reports, or to the writings of professional journalists. The stories that the people most intimately affected by the tragedy and those committed to the struggle for racial justice in this country were producing, the public deemed to be trustworthy and valid. Even after the news cameras left, protests and various acts of resistance occurred…and the truth continued to be told.
Michael Brown’s mother, Lezley McSpadden, shared one particularly compelling story. In 2016, she published a book titled Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil: The Life, Legacy and Love of My Son Michael Brown, in which she writes candidly about her life and family, raising Mike Mike,
and pivotal moments before and after Mike’s death.¹
In what was undoubtedly the worst day of her life, she described the scene on Canfield Drive after she’d tried for hours to get information about what happened to her son. She writes:
Me and Brittanie slowly moved toward the bloodstained pavement where Mike Mike’s body had been left under the baking sun and stood in a daze, and I began shaking my head. Why?
I called out. The police had left him out there like he wasn’t nobody’s. But I needed them and the rest of the world to know that Mike Mike did belong to somebody, a whole damn family, and he was mine before he was anybody else’s. A crowd of strangers gathered around, chanting, Hands up! Don’t shoot!
A hand reached through the crowd and handed me a bouquet of roses. I pulled off each rose petal and dropped it on the pavement, covering what was now sacred ground to me.
²
McSpadden goes on to describe what happened when a local news reporter asked her what information the police had given her thus far. She responded:
They haven’t told me anything. They wouldn’t even let me identify my son. The only way I knew it was my son was from people out here showing me his picture on the Internet!... He threw his hands up! He ain’t have no gun. The boy threw his hands up, and the police just shot him,
I heard a woman yell from the crowd….I was begging the police for answers, but my words fell on deaf ears. The cop who killed my son had vanished into thin air. My son was gone.
³
Michael Brown was Lezley McSpadden and Michael Brown Sr.’s son. He was loved by his parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins. He was a human being. As his mother said, he belonged to them, and she details the contours of that belonging throughout