WASHINGTON – Cori Bush went from helping to run a informal movement for racial justice to winning two terms as a Missouri congressman, with an office decorated with photographs of families who lost loved ones to police brutality. One photo is of Michael Brown.

Brown death 10 years ago in Ferguson, Missouri, was a defining moment for The American movement for racial justice. It highlighted long-standing demands for reforms to the systems that subject millions of people to everything from economic discrimination to murder.

Many activists like Bush went from declaring “Black Lives Matter” to running for seats in legislatures, city halls, prosecutors’ offices and halls of Congress – and winning. Local legislation was passed to do everything, since dismantle prisons and jails And reform schools to eliminate hair discrimination.

At least 30 states and Washington, D.C., have enacted laws intended to combat abusive behavior since 2020, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. And even as the past decade of racial justice activism has transformed politics, landmark reforms remain elusive, more than three dozen activists, elected officials and political operatives told The Associated Press.

“When we look at the progress we’ve made, there are ups and downs,” said Bush, who was a longtime community organizer and pastor before becoming a Democratic representative. “We are still dealing with militarized policing in communities. We are still dealing with police shootings.

A decade of activist achievements

As the new generation of cellphone-wielding black activists rewrote the national debate over policing, issues of public safety and racial justice moved to the center of American politics. Police body cameras are widespread. Tactics like strangulation were banned throughout the country.

Ferguson caused an immediate shift in how communities approach police reform and misconduct, said Svante Myrick, who served as the youngest mayor of Ithaca, New York, from 2011 to 2021 before becoming president of People for the American Way, a progressive advocacy group. band.

At least 150 reforms adopted in localities and states across the country.

“I know that someone’s life was saved, that there was an officer, that there was an encounter where a police officer might have made a different decision if there had not been 400 days of protest during the Ferguson uprising,” Bush said in an interview. “Maybe the world was starting to realize that it can’t just be an external strategy, there has to be an internal strategy as well.”

An example is Tishaura Jones, the first black woman to lead the city of St. Louis, which has worked to end St. Louis’ “arrest and incarcerate” model of policing and place more emphasis on social service programs to help neighborhoods with the highest crime rates.

It’s a model that a new generation of leaders is implementing nationally.

“I am someone who entered politics through the Black Lives Matter movement after witnessing years of unjust killings against black people and people of color,” said Chi Ossé, 26, a city council member in New York.

He used social media to organize protests for racial justice following the killing of white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. George Floydwho was Black, in 2020, triggering a new and massive wave of protests. “It allowed me to take a different leadership style within my own community than previous city council members who represented this district.”

There is work to be done

Lawmakers in Washington were wary at the start of the Black Lives Matter movement.

In 2015, then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told three Black Lives Matter activists that they should focus on changing laws rather than hearts. And a 2016 memo from the Democratic Party’s campaign arm in the House of Representatives asked politicians to limit the number of Black Lives Matter activists present at public events or meet with organizers privately.

Ferguson marked a new phase. For perhaps the first time, a highly visible mass protest movement for justice for a single victim arose organically – without being convened by members of the clergy or centered in the Church – and often connected by cell phones and supported by hip-hop.

Brown’s death and the treatment of Black Lives Matter protesters in the days that followed also led many Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders to to an internal assessment. Organizations and individuals of all ages have been mobilized to come out of the shadows.

“We have made progress,” Bush said. “I wanted to bring the movement to the House of Representatives, and I think I was able to do that.”

A movement meets national political change

In 2015, Ferguson activists were welcomed to the White House to work on the Obama administration’s project. Task Force for 21st Century Policing.

While Donald Trump has adopted certain criminal justice reforms such as the First stage acthe remained opposed to racial justice activists throughout his administration and the movement was met with contempt on the right. In 2016, the then-Republican candidate called Black Lives Matter “divisive” and accused President Barack Obama of worsening race relations in the country.

Trump was president during the racial justice protests that erupted in the summer of 2020 after the killing of Floyd in Minneapolis. He job during demonstrations, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”. At the time, he signed a decree encouraging better policing practices, but this has been criticized by some for failing to recognize what they see as systemic racial bias in policing.

Earlier in his term, during a 2017 speech in New YorkTrump appeared to advocate harsher treatment of people in police custody, speaking disdainfully about the police practice of shielding the heads of handcuffed suspects while they are placed in patrol cars.

Trump’s election has caused many racial justice activists to shift their focus from individual police departments to how federal policies fund and protect police misconduct.

The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis

After a tough Democratic primary in which candidates debated how best to advance racial justice, the movement was propelled back into politics when Chauvin murdered Floyd in May 2020.

The ensuing global protests for racial justice upended American politics and shocked even many members of the movement who had spent years advocating for policies that were suddenly brought into the mainstream, such as Community Action Teams. emergency response, restrictions on police tactics and even redirecting police funding.

Members of Floyd’s family appeared at the 2020 Democratic National Convention after global protests; the following year, the party introduced a bill on his behalf that would have enacted sweeping police accountability reforms.

The George Floyd Justice In Policing Act would have banned chokeholds and no-knock warrants, like the one that led to Louisville police kill Breonna Taylor in his own house. It would also have created a database listing agents sanctioned for serious misconduct, among other measures.

The House passed it in 2021. But the Senate failed to reach consensus.

Stand outside or be at the table

Ella Jones didn’t see herself running for office before the Ferguson protests. A minister and entrepreneur, Jones felt called to protest Brown’s killing but said local Democratic leaders told her to run for mayor of Ferguson. She won a seat on the city council and was eventually elected mayor.

“You can stand outside and scream at the system. However, you need to be at the table where policy is made. So, some people can go into politics. Some people can jump into starting nonprofits, but it’s going to take all of us working together to make the change we really need,” Jones said. “You need to be at the table where policies are made. »

Ferguson prosecutor Wesley Bell promised to address police misconduct.

Bell told the AP in 2020 that lawmakers need to take a hard look at laws that give police officers protections from prosecution that ordinary citizens don’t have.

“We see these types of laws all over the country, and it’s something that handcuffs prosecutors in many ways when it comes to prosecuting officers who have committed unlawful use of force or shooting against police ” Bell said.

In August he defeated Bush in a bitter Democratic primary for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Bush said she didn’t know what she would do after leaving Congress.

“But the fight is still here and my boots are not far from me,” she said. “So people probably should have asked themselves: Is she more dangerous in Congress or out of Congress?