FERGUSON VOICES: DISRUPTING THE FRAME DESIGN BRIEF
ABOUT FERGUSON The following information is a summary of what happened on the day Michael Brown was fatally shot by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. While acknowledging the complexity of the issue, the conflicting reports of what happened on the day, and the reactions of the Ferguson community, the aim of this section of the design brief is to try and state facts as clearly and objectively as possible. On the 9 August, 2014, 18-year old Michael Brown was fatally shot by Ferguson police officer, Darren Wilson. Wilson responded to a call that a robbery and assault had taken place in a nearby store (security footage later identified Michael Brown). There were several eye witnesses that said Michael Brown was shot as he was running away. Wilson’s own account of the shooting suggests that Brown had his hands up, but when he went to put them down, he shot him. Other reports said that Brown and his friend, who was with him at the time, Dorian Johnson, tried to wrestle the officer’s gun from him. Some eyewitnesses said that Brown had been trying to free himself from the hold the officer had of him through the car window. The Department of Justice report on the incident stated: Wilson and other witnesses stated that Brown then reached into the SUV through the open driver’s
window and punched and grabbed Wilson. This is corroborated by bruising on Wilson’s jaw and scratches on his neck, the presence of Brown’s DNA on Wilson’s collar, shirt, and pants, and Wilson’s DNA on Brown’s palm. While there are other individuals who stated that Wilson reached out of the SUV and grabbed Brown by the neck, prosecutors could not credit their accounts because they were inconsistent with physical and forensic evidence, as detailed throughout this report. (US Department of Justice, 2015a, p. 6)
INVESTIGATION INTO DARREN WILSON & THE FPD While the Department of Justice did not indict Darren Wilson for the shooting of Michael Brown, an investigation into the Ferguson Police Department (FPD) determined that the FPD had regularly engaged in misconduct towards the community members of Ferguson, in particular discriminating towards African-American citizens and applying racial stereotypes that “revealed a pattern or practice of unlawful conduct within the Ferguson Police Department that violates the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and federal statutory law” (US Department of Justice, 2015b). The incident lead to a series of protests in Ferguson and a heavily militarised police response that many viewed as symptomatic of the underlying issue that led to Michael Brown’s
death, sparking vigorous debate about the relationship between law enforcement and the African-American community, the militarisation of police, and the Use of Force Doctrine in Missouri and other states. It also led to increased activism in relation to issues such as for-profit policing, and the education and prison systems.
PROTESTS IN FERGUSON On the day of Brown’s shooting, members of the community set up a small shrine where is body had been (and laid in the street for up to four hours after he was shot). One unidentified police officer allowed his dog to urinate on the makeshift shrine, and a while later, a police car drove over it. This increased the anger of the community, and sparked protests in the area. On August 10, this began with a day of memorial, during which some people began looting businesses. Local police responded by assembling approximately 150 officers in riot gear. The crowd was dispersed by 2am. On 11 August, 2014, police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd that had gathered around the burned-out shell of the QuikTrip store, which had been set on fire the night before. Reports that gun shots were fired began to emerge, and some protestors threw rocks at police. They responded by firing tear gas and bean bag rounds at the crowd.
The following day, protestors gathered at Clayton, the county seat, to call on Darren Wilson to be prosecuted. In response to rumours that Michael Brown had his hands up saying “don’t shoot” at the time he was shot, protestors carried signs saying “don’t shoot”, or held their hands in the air while chanting “Hands up, don’t shoot”. According to police reports, some protestors threw bottles at officers. By 13 August, there were over 70 SWAT police on the scene, and there has been extensive criticism over the excessively militarised police presence on the scene. Over the 12 & 13th August, police used smoke bombs, flash grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowd. One woman suffered a nonfatal gunshot wound to the head. CNN recorded video of one officer saying to protestors, “Bring it, you fucking animals, bring it.”
ST LOUIS: AN IDIOSYNCRATIC CITY St Louis is an unusual city in the US: it has 90 municipalities, some with a population of less than 100 people and a few square miles in area. There are 60 police forces and 81 municipal courts. For-profit policing is rife. According to Professor Brendan Roediger, from the St Louis University School of Law, there were 440,000 outstanding arrest warrants for minor offences in 2014, 9 times higher than Cook County in Illinois. In an interview with Tim Pool in the documentary, “Ferguson: A Report from Occupied Territory” (2015), Roediger said, “Most of the
homeless people that I work with at some point were making it...and then something happened. And the municipal court system is often the something that happened.” Within many of these municipal courts, almost all of the people who work in the court system are white, while the majority of the defendants are black. Racial profiling is a daily occurrence, with people being pulled over on a regular basis (sometimes in a number of different municipalities in one day), or for J-Walking in areas that have no pedestrian crossings or walk lights. For people on fixed or low incomes, the fines can be financially crippling, and often have to be paid in a short period of time or an arrest warrant is issued. For some people, it comes down to making a choice between feeding their families or paying the fine, which in reality is a choice between feeding their families or going to jail and losing their jobs.
HARRASSMENT OF THE MEDIA The police also drew fire in relation to their treatment of the media. Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery and Huffington Post reporter Ryan J. Reilly were arrested after they were given only 45 seconds to leave a McDonald’s restaurant. Lowrey said, “Officers slammed me into a fountain soda machine because I was confused about which door they were asking me to walk out of.” On 13 August, journalists from Al Jazeera America
who were covering the protest were reportedly tear gassed and shot at with rubber bullets by a police SWAT team. The next day, the St Carles County Regional SWAT team put out a press release saying that they had helped journalists move their equipment.
EXTRA RESOURCES http://graphics.stltoday.com/ferguson/#theshooting http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/timelineevents-ferguson/ http://wgcc.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ Making-of-Ferguson.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq9pHONmaLc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq9pHONmaLc USDOJ Report into the death of Michael Brown: https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/ press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/doj_report_ on_shooting_of_michael_brown_1.pdf DOJ Report into the Ferguson Police Department: https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/ press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/ferguson_ police_department_report.pdf USA Today: (2014), “TV crews hit by tear gas, bean bags in Ferguson, MO “, http://www.usatoday.com/ videos/news/2014/08/14/14044153/
ABOUT THE MORAL COURAGE PROJECT The Moral Courage Project is a collaborative project between PROOF and the University of Dayton Human Rights Center and Human Rights Studies Program. It represents a new initiative to study, collect, archive, and publicize instances of moral courage around the world. By giving a face and name to this notion of moral courage, the project aims to tell the stories of upstanders and inspire others to confront injustice in their own communities. Trained by PROOF on the ethics and methodology of collecting witness testimony, teams of students and faculty travel to designated areas domestically and abroad to collect interviews, photographs, and other materials documenting instances of moral courage in post-conflict settings. Building on PROOF’s existing work in Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia and Sri Lanka, Moral Courage participants collect the records in an accessible archive at the Human Rights Center, which is made available to students, researchers, and advocacy organizations.
WHY MORAL COURAGE? Even in the 21st century, our world continues to witness, confront, and survive genocide and mass atrocities. From the streets of Ferguson, Missouri to the voting booths in Kenya and the small villages of Sri Lanka, widespread and systematic human rights violations persist despite the growth of international human rights and humanitarian law. For every case of violence, abuse and exploitation, however, there are stories of people relentlessly fighting these same injustices. In all communities, one can find individuals who are standing up on behalf of others in danger, regardless of the risk in doing so. These people embody moral courage. These people are not bystanders but rather what U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power calls human rights “upstanders.” Moral courage can save lives. It is critical to have a better understanding of these extraordinary acts among ordinary people as our global community continues to grapple with how best to respond to emerging violence. It is the aim of this project to bear witness to the heroic work being done by seemingly average people across the world and to bring these stories to light in order to better understand the impact of microlevel human rights advocacy
In May 2016, participants from the Moral Courage Project travelled to Ferguson, Missouri, to document oral histories of people who participated in and were affected by the 2014 protests after the killing of Michael Brown. The project’s goal is to document people who, despite adversity and risk, chose to become an upstander and activate their moral courage. The research team consisted of 8 University of Dayton students from across majors under the leadership of Joel R. Pruce, Assistant Professor of Human Rights Studies; Leora Kahn, Founder and Executive Director of PROOF; and Jimmie Briggs, human rights activist and documentary journalist. Students were trained in human rights, testimony taking, forensic interviewing, media production, and other skills pertinent to storytelling. Participants are currently producing a range of materials from their time in Ferguson including academic research and public presentations (photo essays, podcasts, videos, etc.).
“Moral courage can save lives. It is critical to have a better understanding of these extraordinary acts among ordinary people as our global community continues to grapple with how best to respond to emerging violence.� Photo taken by a Moral Courage student at the Missouri History Museum - May 2016
EXHIBITION STAFF Curation: Leora Kahn PROOF: Media for Social Justice Centre for Social Innovation 601 West 26th St, Suite #325 New York, NY 10001 Phone: +1 914 522 3109 Email: leora@proof.org Web: proof.org
Graphic Design: Willhemina Wahlin Phone: +61 450 885 002 Email: willhemina@gmail.com PROOF: Media for Social Justice | Charles Sturt University | Braenchild Media 7 Major Innes Rd Port Macquarie NSW 2444 Australia Web: braenchild.com | proof.org | www.csu.edu.au
Photography: Mark Katzman Email: mark@markkatzman.com Web: www.markkatzman.com www.photogravure.com
Fabrication: Kate Dixon Hixon Design Consultants Inc 420 Park St | PO Box 226 | Housatonic MA 01236 Phone: 413 274 5097 mobile 917 664 9020 Web: www.hixondesign.com
NOTES ON CONTENT Each panel will contain a quote, narrative and the name of the narrator and one line of who they are. The following people’s narrayives will be included: Valerie Felix Valerie was in the 7th grade when she started protesting. “I continued to protest because I had to make my future better.” Tory Russell Tory is a critical thinker and community builder who could be found on the frontlines of the protests from day one. “I always, always wanna tell people, organise wherever you at.” Scott Bonner Scott is the Director of the Ferguson Municipal Public Library who convened an alternate learning space when local schools were closed. “I changed as a librarian and that day the library changed as a library.” Marty Casey Marty had an established career in entertainment before dedicating her talents to teaching youth about music and self-expression. “I found myself feeling empowered.”
Koach Baruch Frazier Koach is a Jewish audioologist who provided the rhythm for the protests day and night with his djembe. “‘Cause Mike’s our family, and we’re never gonna forget.”
Bradley Rayford Bradley is a local photographer who trained his camera to document the events as they unfolded. “So I’m a citizen right now. I”m putting the fire out.”
Greg Casem Greg is a verteran officer with the Ferguson Police Department who is known for his strong rapport with the community/ “I tell our officers you treat people fairly, and they’ll treat you fairly.”
Monica Tyson “I knew that we needed to be humanized as a community and be be looked at as American citizens, human beings, and we had the right, the constitutional right, to fight for justice.”
Elizabeth Vega Elizabeth is a Chicana artist and educator whose background in counselling prepared her to engage with the grieving community. “Activism is believing that people can be pusuaded to act in a collective way [that also] benefits their humanity.” Daryl Meese Daryl is a minister who hosted weekly potluck for dialogue and fellowship. “We have one table because we have one family and one community.” Darren Seals Darren was an activist, music promoter, union worker, and community leader form Ferguson who was murdered on September 6, 2016. “It was like 98 percent family reunion, 2 percent riot.”
Different points of view from various angles of the of exhibition.
24�
Boards will be installed using small metal triangular frames.
PRODUCTION SCHEDULE November 3-10 Research and design brief (Willie); Editing of testimonials and contextual information (Leora); Portrait photography (Mark). November 11-17 1 round design (Willie) November 18-20 First round editing (Leora + TBA) November 21-22 Design Edits (Willie) November 23 Final Checks (Leora, Willie + TBA November 24 Set up for print | Files to Kate Dixon Print, fabrication and install dates TBA. Kate Dixon to provide more information on fabrication materials and framework for installation.