A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Some of the first protesters on the streets of Ferguson, Mo., after Michael Brown was killed 10 years ago have become national figures. As we look back this week on what's changed since those protests, we turn to DeRay Mckesson. He's known for his social media presence, his way with words and his blue Patagonia vest. He runs a nonprofit that tries to end police violence through data analysis and policy reform. He's written books, and he also hosts the podcast "Pod Save The People." And he spoke with our co-host, Michel Martin on her visit this week to Missouri.
DERAY MCKESSON: I didn't know what it was going to be, and I'd never protested before, but I was just like, I got to do something. Like, they killed him, and they left his body in the street for four hours. Like, it felt wild not to do something.
MICHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: And then how long did that action last? I mean, how long were you in Ferguson?
MCKESSON: Yeah, so we were all in the street for 400 days, and then, as you know, the protests spread. So I eventually left St. Louis because Freddie Gray got killed in Baltimore, and I was like, it feels sort of wild to not do this fight at home, and I moved back to Baltimore, where Freddie Gray got killed.
MARTIN: Let's just talk about kind of the movement broadly defined, just sort of reminding people that Black Lives Matter started as a hashtag by these three women who were grieving the death of Trayvon Martin and also the acquittal of George Zimmerman in his death, who was not a police figure. I mean, he was a private citizen. How would you then sort of describe the direction that the movement took?
MCKESSON: Yeah, Michel, I don't know. You know, it's been really hard. The story that you told is actually a big piece of mythology that those of us who were in the street in 2014 have always pushed back on, that what is true is that the first person to use the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter were the three people that sort of very quickly claimed ownership over the movement. So when I think about the movement, I'm reminded that in August of 2014, it was people in St. Louis who got to the streets, stayed in the streets, and that's what led people all across the country to come outside.
MARTIN: What I'm trying to get at is it just seems like there have been different threads to the movement since then, and they have different priorities and goals, and what I'm trying to say is, more broadly, what directions do you think it's taken over the past 10 years?
MCKESSON: It's always been a pain point for the people who were dragged in the middle of the street.
MARTIN: Well, why don't we just talk about the pain points now, just because it just seems as though there are a lot of them? There seem to be a lot of tensions among people who have prominent roles. Some people are speaking to some people. Some people are not speaking to other people. A lot of people have written books, and in these books, they kind of criticize each other for their roles, and I'm just wondering, with the benefit of hindsight, why do you think that is?
MCKESSON: Yeah, you know, it's interesting. There's always been, like, internal disagreements inside of the last 10 years, and I'll tell you some of the biggest ones - whenever we went to go talk about them publicly, elders would call me, and they would say, DeRay, you know, if you talk about this, it'll hurt everybody. Now, I'll tell you, 10 years later, with hindsight, I think that we all probably should have raised a little more alarm about some things. I worry that people look back, and the most recent thing that they remember about some of the groups are financial issues or, you know, what happened to the money, and that makes me sad, that that might be the way that some people think about it, because the truth is that a lot of stuff did change, you know?
MARTIN: Well, you talked about how, you know, the elders would kind of call you out, and one of their arguments was, you guys don't have a structure, and I wonder whether part of it is that the structures are different now.
MCKESSON: I respect them and love them, and I'm mindful that they passed no laws to restrict the power of the police. They did a lot of incredible work around voting and the larger civil rights, but around the police, there was almost nothing for us to inherit at the structural level, and that's not a critique. It's just true.
MARTIN: You know, Black Lives Matter certainly created a culture shift. I mean, you still see people with Black Lives Matter signs in their windows. But has there been any real institutional change as a result of this movement?
MCKESSON: There has. I do think there's a weird thing that happened, where this narrative that, like, nothing has changed is both powerful and potent, and I - it confuses me.
MARTIN: Do you think that it's because we're used to seeing a power shift in terms of the person elected, as opposed to policies implemented? Do you think that's part of it?
MCKESSON: So when I think about how this will actually happen, it will be in cities and states, and I think that people have been looking for, like, the national silver bullet, as opposed to understanding that the best version of the change will be a 50-state strategy. That is just how policing is set up, and it will be at the city level. And I think people misunderstand that because the civil rights movement had these big national wins. Voting was a national win. And I do think that that misunderstanding has skewed the way that people think about progress.
MARTIN: DeRay Mckesson, thanks so much for talking with us.
MCKESSON: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLES BRADLEY & MENAHAN STREET BAND'S "CHANGES (INSTRUMENTAL)")
MARTÍNEZ: DeRay Mckesson is a civil rights advocate who was an early part of the Black Lives Matter movement. He spoke with our co-host Michel Martin as we mark the 10-year anniversary of Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Mo.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLES BRADLEY & MENAHAN STREET BAND'S "CHANGES (INSTRUMENTAL)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
