“This started as a vigil, and then moved to a protest, and has now evolved into a movement” ...

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Political Scene: What We Know and Don’t Know About Michael Brown’s Death
By The New Yorker, August 21, 2014

https://soundcloud.com/newyorker/jelani-cobb-and-amy-davidon-on-the-unrest-in-ferguson

Amy Davidson and Jelani Cobb join host Amelia Lester to discuss the events that followed the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Davidson and Cobb agree that the fact that Brown’s body was left outside for hours by local police ought to be considered when trying to understand the eruptions of emotions among protesters. “What people in the town knew is that there was a young man dead and bleeding and left to lie on the street for hours, and that was the first, and, for many people, and not wrongly, the most essential fact,” Davidson says.

Cobb, who has been reporting from Ferguson, said that he found it difficult to anticipate when violence between police officers and protesters would resurface. “The tensions here have been so unpredictable that, at some points, it seems like everything is fine and things are relaxed, and then, out of nowhere, something will emerge, someone will confront a police officer, or a police officer will do something really provocative,” Cobb says. “There’s really not been an easy way to predict where this is going to go, and that’s also how it’s been since day one here.”

As much as the protests have been about the events of August 9th, they’ve also forced both participants and observers to attend to a long history of police violence and distrust in authorities. “This started as a vigil, and then moved to a protest, and has now evolved into a movement,” Cobb says.
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