A decade of racial justice activism has transformed politics, but landmark reforms remain elusive

WASHINGTON (AP) — Cori Bush stopped helping to lead informal movement for racial justice to winning two terms as a Missouri congresswoman with an office decorated with photographs of families who had lost loved ones to police violence. One photo shows Michael Brown.

Brown Death 10 years ago in Ferguson, Missouri, was a defining moment for American Movement for Racial Justice. It has focused global attention on long-standing demands for reform of systems that subject millions of people to everything from economic discrimination to murder.

Many activists like Bush have gone from proclaiming “Black Lives Matter” to fighting for seats in statehouses, city halls, prosecutors’ offices, and the halls of Congress—and winning. Local legislation has been passed to make everything from dismantling prisons and jails And school reform eliminating hair discrimination.

Since 2020, at least 30 states and Washington, D.C., have passed laws aimed at curbing abuses, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. And while the past decade of racial justice activism has changed politics, meaningful 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, it ebbs and flows,” said Bush, who was a longtime community organizer and pastor before becoming a Democratic Party official. “We’re still dealing with militarized policing in communities. We’re still dealing with police shootings.”

As a new generation of cellphone-wielding black activists has rewritten the national conversation about policing, issues of public safety and racial justice have moved to the center of American politics. Police body cameras are widespread. Tactics similar to chokehold were outlawed throughout the country.

Ferguson sparked immediate changes in how communities grapple with police reform and misconduct, said Svante Myrick, who was the youngest mayor of Ithaca, N.Y., from 2011 to 2021 before he became president of the progressive advocacy organization People for American way.” group.

At least 150 reforms took place in communities and states across the country.

“I know that someone’s life was saved, that there was an officer, that there was a meeting in which the 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. “Perhaps the world has woken up to the fact that it cannot just be an external strategy, there must be an internal strategy.”

An example of this is Tishaura Jones. first black woman to lead the City of St. Louis as it works to end St. Louis’ “arrest and custodial” model of policing and place greater emphasis on social service programs to help neighborhoods with the highest crime rates.

It is a model that a new generation of leaders is implementing across the country.

“I am someone who entered politics through the Black Lives Matter movement after years of watching black and brown people being unjustly killed,” said Chi Osse, a 26-year-old New York City Council member.

He used social media to organize protests for racial justice after the killing of white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. George Floydwho was Black in 2020, sparking a new massive wave of protests. “This has resulted in me having a different style of leadership in my own community than previous City Council members who have represented this district.”

Lawmakers in Washington were initially wary 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, not hearts. And in a 2016 memo, the House Democratic campaign arm urged politicians to limit the number of Black Lives Matter activists present at public events or to meet with organizers privately.

Ferguson marked a new stage. For perhaps the first time, a highly visible mass protest movement for justice for a single victim began organically, rather than being convened by members of the clergy or centered in a church. 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 galvanized many Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. according to internal calculation. Organizations and individuals of all ages were ready to get out of the game.

“We’ve made progress,” Bush said. “I wanted to bring a movement to the House and I feel like I was able to do that.”