The new ‘talk’ and the legacy of Mike Brown

Episode 1 Transcript

CHAD DAVIS, HOST: Okay, I want to run through a fun, creative exercise with y'all. I want you to imagine yourself as a teenager again. Okay, maybe that's not that fun, depending on the type of teenager you were, but let's keep going.

You're in a car with your three closest friends. Where you're going? I don't know. You pick the location, really, anywhere you want to go. You're young and you're vibing, playing music, and everything just feels chill. Then your friend runs a stop sign.

[SIREN SOUNDS]

You look at the side view mirror, what’s that? A cop car swerves out of the side street it was parked on and follows you to pull you over. Your friend sees the cop, she flips the signal on and parks the car.

SOUND BITE: How you doing today? I'm good. How you doing? Alright, I noticed that you didn't see that stop sign back there. Did you notice that you ran that stop sign? I did not notice. Okay, well, I'm pulling you over because you did run the stop sign. And we did have to…

DAVIS: The driver is Black, and the officer, who's also Black, is asking her the standard questions you'd expect when you're getting pulled over,

SOUND BITE: Get that description, so is all this information correct here? Yeah, okay, I got your registration. I got your license. Okay, look like you have everything. Uh, what's your name? Juan. Pardon me? Juan. Do you have a last name?

DAVIS: Now, when I was a kid, many years before I learned to drive, I remember the first time I had a preliminary version of the talk with my dad. I was about five years old then, and I asked my dad if MLK was dead.

Now, I didn't intend to spark a conversation about the realities of living in a society amid racism. It was more of a weird, morbid curiosity that I had. I needed to ask and my dad, well, he tried to answer it. Now, full disclosure, even at five, I had a history of asking adults if random people were dead and how they died.

I even asked my kindergarten teacher mid-class around Presidents Day if Washington and Lincoln were dead and how they died. Until a therapist diagnoses me with something…let's just call this a quirky personality trait. So when I asked my dad why MLK died, and he said it was because he was Black, well, of course, I didn't feel great. I mean, I'm Black. So it was kind of weird, but I'm glad he said it. The world isn't fair, and it was best that I understood that sometimes things just happen and there's nothing I can do about it.

The talk is old, but 10 years ago, Ferguson changed the talk. It changed it for Black kids and for the adults around them. It's pushing the definition of what we mean when we say talk and when we talk about the talk.

Now that police stop I asked you to imagine yourself in wasn't a typical police stop. Actually, it wasn't a police stop at all. The girl who I said was your friend driving the car and questioned by a cop isn't actually in a car.

[MUSIC]

She's just standing behind a broken off car door in a classroom full of students. She's not even old enough to drive yet. She's just a freshman. If you walked by and you saw this, you'd probably think this is some weird Grand Theft Auto reenactment. But this isn't a game. This is a simulation, and it's very serious.

This is led by Kimberly St. Clair at a St. Louis area high school where students are being taught how to act if they're pulled over by a cop. 14 year old Amaya Hinton has experienced first hand what it's like to be pulled over sitting in the passenger seat while her dad was driving. He told Amaya to stay calm despite any fear she might have had.

AMAYA HINTON: It's hard to not be scared of repeated actions from, you know, a certain community, from certain people.

DAVIS: Like many other 14 year olds, Amaya is about to take that next step and get her driver's permit. Her dad has tried to teach her how to act if she's pulled over.

HINTON: He always tells me to, like, try to be a suck up, is what he would say. Like he would tell me to, you know, look them in the eye, make sure I'm not reaching for nothing. If I am, make sure that I am moving slowly and telling them my exact movements. I know it, it scares him. I mean, it scares him for me to even grow up, but for me to grow up in a world like this, I'm pretty sure it terrifies him.

DAVIS: Juan Hobson, another 14 year old, says his mom shared this advice.

JUAN HOBSON: She always tell me, like, when I were to get older and I would have the privilege to drive things like that, to always be very aware of your surroundings and know what's around you, because you never know what could happen, and to always drive safe, be safe, and do what you're supposed to do. Because when you don't, and you have an interaction with the police, you never know what could happen.

DAVIS: The talk helps us survive, or at the very least, helps us understand our world. And if we're gonna be completely honest, it's just as confusing for adults. They're trying to figure it out too and teach younger people.

That simulation wasn't held at just any high school. This is Normandy, the high school Mike Brown graduated from just before he was killed by white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. Now Mike wasn't shot during a traffic stop, but what played out is a story that's painfully universal: A young black man killed in an interaction with police gone wrong. And here at Normandy, Brown's legacy, what happened 10 years ago and what happens next? Those are still open questions.

In the past 10 years, Ferguson has become an idea that represents activism, police violence, segregation, educational inequality, racial inequity and tragedy, and Mike has become a symbol, a gateway for people to talk about racial injustice and policing.

In this episode and throughout this season, we're not going to rehash the killing of Mike Brown and the events of August 9, 2014. We're going to explore what happened next and where we are today with the promises that were made by institutions after Mike was killed. How do we remember Mike? How do kids remember him, and how has his memory shaped new conversations about race and justice?

I'm Chad Davis. This is We Live Here: 10 years after the Ferguson Uprising.

[MUSIC]

DAVIS: If you went to the same high school where a student was recently the victim of one of the most high profile shootings in recent memory, one that sparked one of the largest political movements of our time, what do you think it would be like? You'd probably expect long talks, assemblies and conversations led by teachers and faculty, right? I mean, in order to talk about Mike Brown's legacy, well, you have to talk about him, right?

KENNY WATTS: We didn't talk about it. It was never addressed.

DAVIS: Yeah, you heard that right. That's Kenny Watts, a Normandy High School alum who graduated in 2015 just one year after Mike was killed. So, how did we get from not talking about it to having full on training sessions about how to interact with police? Well, we're gonna have to wind the clock about 10 years to when Kenny was in those same halls as the students we heard earlier.

DAVIS: This was a, well, interesting time for the district, it had been under provisional accreditation, which is like a probationary period led by the state. In 2012, the Missouri Board of Education voted to strip the district of its accreditation because of low test scores and poor academic performance. Many students were getting transferred to other schools across the St. Louis area. You might even remember the vitriol from some white parents across the region at town halls and public forums.

But to Kenny, this wasn't just a district. This was family.

WATTS: Community, like, was a big thing, and having pride to be from there and just coming together from all decades, everybody who graduated from Normandy, just being able to come together for football games, homecoming.

DAVIS: I mean, this is a school district that's known for its alumni base, its homecoming and its battle of the bands.

[BAND MUSIC]

DAVIS: Through all of the, you know, turbulence, if you will, that we experienced during that time, and how we just was able to stick with it, and, you know, actually kind of stand up for ourselves and say, ‘No, this is what's really going on.’ You know, we, we weren't a passive community, either, and I learned a lot from that. Standing up, you know, when Normandy was in the middle of losing accreditation, we took a caravan of people, students, people from the community, parents, people probably who just lived around and went down to Jeff City and spoke to people, and so that was a huge thing as well. Like, yeah, like…

DAVIS: The community stood with each other no matter the circumstance. But even that didn't prepare Kenny for the reality of August 9th, 2014. After waking up from a nap at 5 p.m. he pulled up social media and saw what everyone else had already seen: that Mike was killed and that his body was lying on Canfield drive.

He was confused, saddened, but most notably, like many who tapped into the live streams or saw the pics through social media, he was angry.

WATTS: He had already been out there for like, a couple hours already, so that it was just like a build up. And I don't know it's just kind of, um, the day itself had triggered me, like, I just remember, like, being pissed, and not really understanding why, but just having this energy in me where I was heated.

DAVIS: By the time of the first uprisings, Kenny was with his family more than 600 miles away in Mobile, Alabama. At that point, Mike Brown and Ferguson were no longer just a local matter.

SOUNDBITE OF NEWS REPORTS: Overnight in Ferguson, the first real hint of calm. [Chants]

Store owners in Ferguson, Missouri pick up the pieces Saturday morning after protests turned violent and led to looting the night before.

Last night again in suburban St Louis, the scene that photographers captured looked like a police state using the same tactical get up and the same weaponry we've come to expect in urban warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan. Police in Ferguson, Missouri, once again, had to put down and head off violence in the streets following the shooting days ago of a young unarmed Black man who was supposed to head off to college this week.

DAVIS: The uprisings even made a local Mobile newspaper. I mean, Kenny is literally reading the news, watching the uprisings on TV, and texting his friends on how to stay safe.

WATTS: Like, I remember we was in a group chat during that time, and um, a bunch of people had started sharing, like, how to like, deal with tear gas. I was already on it. Like, immediately, like, all the way in Alabama, text my friends. [Texting sounds]. Like, if y'all out there do do because I'm just super, like, internet savvy.

SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST: They just started shooting. They started throwing teargas and shooting at people. Gunshots. What’s your name? What’s your name? My name…

WATTS: So I'm just looking at you know, I'm looking at everything Twitter and Facebook.

DAVIS: And then days later, classes just — started. The energy was tense. Kids would go to school during the day and head to the streets of Ferguson at night. This was a year and a half after losing accreditation, a former classmate shot dead just weeks before, and yet, nothing from the school.

WATTS: I just, I won’t say exactly who, but I just remember somebody saying, like, whatever is going on outside, don't bring that here.

DAVIS: But that didn’t last long and tensions eventually rose. A couple months into the school year, the students decided enough was enough. The students approached Normandy High School leaders about holding their own march.

In December 2014, Normandy students stood up, walked out of their classrooms and joined schools across the country to lead their own protest for Mike.

WATTS: And it was raining that day too. Walking from the high school, had the police escort, they blocked off, people honking. I remember uh people like being outside the cars, like the community was charged. So it was like this had to been talked about, like you had to talk about this. Like, people hanging outside cars, like we was walking on one side, cars coming down the other [honking noise] people hanging out the window, like cus they see the signs, they see who out there.

DAVIS: According to a St. Louis Post Dispatch Article of the walkout, about 200 students protested to honor Mike. His father, Mike Brown Sr., also joined in. Kenny says it was a success,

WATTS: And uh, that's when the conversation started and it kind of eased off in the school and more people came, and we would have assemblies about it and talk about it. But outside of school, everything was still scorching hot.

[MUSIC]

WATTS: So it was weird being, going to school because it, it took that for it to be a conversation. And I'm pretty sure, I know I was confused.

DAVIS: At that time, Kenny was 17 years old. Today, he teaches art at Normandy. And he works alongside some of the same faculty that taught at Normandy when he was a student.

Years after that protest, he learned that many of the teachers were just as frustrated as he was as a student. For years, he thought they just didn’t care, that talking about Mike just didn’t matter. What he didn’t know was that teachers were instructed not to talk about what happened.

WATTS: And so to hear that they got placed on a gag order, um, I understand why, but um still like, as an adult, I understand, but to still be connected to that kid, it should have been something, like something.

DAVIS: For Kenny and his classmates, the march was a wake up call that led the school to finally talk about Mike.

Kenny graduated a couple months later and went to Harris Stowe State university. He became a full time teacher at Normandy in 2022. That’s when he realized something interesting. When it came to the class of 2023, they knew about Mike and Ferguson, at least to an extent. But what about those incoming students?

WATTS: Almost little to none, little to none. And that's because it's not crystallized in the institution. It's not like a, it’s not a topic at all. And to be quite frank, I don't have as of right now, I don't have an answer on how it could be.

DAVIS: So, he took matters into his own hands and showed students the real Mike. Mike Brown, the person.

WATTS: I showed them the videos, I showed them Mike in his regular form. Like instead of him being propped up as some type of like martyr, hero, I show him like, as a regular person, like, he went here, show his graduation photo. And we just had a conversation, I want to understand how that makes them feel…

[MUSIC]

DAVIS: Kenny is trying to right the wrongs of 10 years ago. He’s trying to make sure that the kids who are at Normandy now have some understanding, some knowledge, some background of Mike.

WATTS: Now this is the unfortunate reality, but they were able to digest it a little easier because of other situations. So it was like, um, they knew George Floyd. They understood that.

DAVIS: And of course they’d understand. George Floyd was murdered in 2020. And while he was killed in Minneapolis, a clear thread from what the protesters were calling for, and how they protested, can be traced back to Ferguson.

WATTS: I will say this wholeheartedly, and I don't mean it as like disrespect to Mike, but he wasn't a martyr, he wasn't like a hero who died for our cause. But I do believe he was a trigger. How he was killed obviously triggered some stuff in the community where it was a familiar thing. right. And he was a kid. So now we're able to address wounds, because it was a very triggering situation for a whole community to be outraged.

DAVIS: In the north hall of Normandy High School stands a tribute to Mike. His presence literally remains in those halls.Amaya was only four or five years old when Mike was killed and just like others in her class, she’s learning about Mike's memory through those who knew him, through those who are older than her, like Kenny, who feel that it’s their job to keep his memory alive.

AMAYA HINTON: I appreciate him, you know. At first, I never really knew who Mike Brown was at first. I'd seen him around school and always be like, who's Mike? But it took my art teachers to kinda be like ‘Mike was this amazing guy.’

DAVIS: But with that comes trauma, a trauma that exists throughout the school. And that's because Mike also signifies something else, especially for older Black people and Black parents.

KIMBERLY ST. CLAIR: Many people have heard about Mike Brown, whether you were here or not, but that's still trauma that you live in through the eyes of somebody else. It hasn’t even happened to you but now we're at a traffic stop afraid.

DAVIS: And for Kimberly St. Clair, that talk has evolved into the training session she hopes will save lives.

We’ll be back after the break.

[MUSIC]

DAVIS: And we’re back.

OK, are y’all ready to pretend to be a teenager again? I promise this is the last time I’m making you do it. Well, maybe at least for this episode.

So, you’re 15 or 16 years old and you’re about to get your driver's permit or license.

Now you’re excited and maybe you’re getting a car from your parents. Or maybe you’ve saved up and you’re about to buy a used car from that dealer down the street or through Craigslist. Or maybe your grandma isn’t driving anymore and you have a bronze 1992 Dodge Dynasty and they’re down to hand it over. The emergency break doesn’t work and the fabric that sticks to the ceiling keeps dropping down so you gotta use like a stapler to keep it intact. Maybe, that’s just me.

Now, you’re hopping in the driver’s seat for the very first time. Do you have your keys, wallet, phone, ID, insurance card? Alright, perfect, good. One last thing, do you have your Doc Dash?

SOUNDBITE: Doc dash is an organizational communication unit used during traffic stops by motorists to communicate to law enforcement any non visible circumstance, situation or disability, while simultaneously displaying all state required motor vehicle documents at a glance.

[MUSIC]

DAVIS: So if you’re like me, you’ve probably never heard of this before. That’s because it’s somewhat new. It’s something that Doc Dash founder and St. Louis resident Kimberly St. Clair is trying to introduce to drivers and future drivers, including students from Normandy High School.

It’s an orange plastic folder that’s pretty simple to use.

ST. CLAIR: So you would take this and you would write on it any non visible situation, circumstance or disability and put that there. Put your driver's license here. Put your insurance here.

DAVIS: And then you kind of like, do you hang that from like..

ST. CLAIR: Yeah, so no, this goes in your, this goes in your, always in your driver's side pocket of your door.

DAVIS: Okay. Okay, gotcha, okay

ST. CLAIR: Always in this driver's side pocket. This last one can be your registration, depending on what state you're in.

DAVIS: I like to describe this contraption and the accompanying training as an advanced placement version of “The Talk.” The idea came to Kimberly years ago. Not because of Mike Brown, but because of another high profile police shooting of a Black man in 2016.

SOUND BITE OF NEWS REPORT: And we're also learning more today about the life of Philando Castile, the man killed by a police officer in Minnesota on Wednesday. Castille was…

ST. CLAIR: My husband and I were driving down the street in a fog. Because what happens is and what I don't think that other ethnicities understand that when this happens in our community, we are walking around in a fog, in a absolute daze. And we, still we still have to go to work, we still have to go to school. You know what I mean? And everybody else is walking around like ‘Oh, that's just a shame.’ And it's, it's we're mentally struggling over here. So we were having one of those struggle conversations, my husband and I driving, and he said, ‘It just has to be something we have to find something there has to be a better way to communicate.’ And I promise you Chad, it was like a BAM, like a lightning hit me.

[BRIGHT MUSIC]

DAVIS: Just like that, Doc Dash was born. Well kind of. She had the idea but let’s be real, it’s a lot of work to create a new product or device, not to mention launching it, creating the company itself and trying to figure out how to distribute and market it so, she put it in the drawer.

Years went by and unfortunately the headlines didn’t stop.

So, Kimberly's kids start to grow up. She notices that instead of going outside, playing in the park and participating in sports, they’re inside, playing on computers and phones. She takes them to the park, encouraging them to play a bit of tennis, but they weren’t having it.

ST. CLAIR: So I said, forget it you know I mean, I gave up, I came home and went on with my day just toiling this thing around that I have lazy children.

And my youngest daughter, my youngest daughter came to me that evening and sat on the bed. She said, ‘You know why we didn't want to go to the tennis court?’ I said, ‘No, what is the problem?’ She said ‘Because we saw a police officer and thought we were going to be shot and killed.’

[SOMBER MUSIC]

ST. CLAIR: And I'm telling you, I mean, really, every time I tell that story, I have to fight back tears, every single time. Because it just snatched something out of my soul at that minute. Because I thought that maybe I thought because we weren't talking about it with them, that they didn't know, you know. Um and I just, I just at that moment, I just couldn't live like that.

DAVIS: Kimberly saw Doc Dash as a way to bridge the gap between young people and police. So she opened up her drawer, took out the prototype and got to work.

Her goal is to eventually make it a part of the license renewal process. So when you head to the DMV to get a new license or your first, you’d also be given a Doc Dash folder. She’s interviewed paramedics and other professionals on what the color of the unit should be, how big it should be and what information should be included.

Last year, she received a $30,000 grant from the Missouri Department of Transportation to go into schools to introduce the program. The money only covered one district, and she chose Normandy.

But most importantly, Doc Dash includes a teaching component, which is why Kimberly was at Normandy High School in the first place.

ST. CLAIR: And so this assumption that we know how to approach each other is where I think we've all gone wrong. And so when I even when I talk to the police it’s like, ‘Well, we've, we've, we've, we've been trained.’ I said, ‘But who are you training? Have you ever spoken to anybody about how to conduct themselves in a traffic stop? I said ‘You, we are required to learn how to drive and we have a driver's test and a written and you have to physically drive.’ I said, ‘But there's been no no instructions on how to communicate. To go on our interview, you have mock interviews, to teach you how to interview.’ And so I think we've assumed there's some basic behaviors that people should come with, that they just don't.

And so Doc Dash is the teaching element. And so I've developed a workshop, Protocols to Police Engagement, where I go into schools and we do mock traffic stops. I bring in the door.

DAVIS: It's a car door on a tripod that she brings to each training session. On this day, Kimberly gathers those students you heard earlier. One is pretending to be the driver while the other three are passengers. Kimberly had the students put their hoodies on their head when the officer pulls them over.

SOUNDBITE OF ST. CLAIR: Let the back window down. Everybody you got the back window down? All right. Can I see your handsome face? It was so beautiful. There we go, just let me see you. Let me see you. Alright come on, police. Oh where is your DocDash?

ST. CLAIR: It was so interesting because I let them have two, many different roles. So some of them played the police. And I asked them, I want you to think about waking up every day and understanding that just because you put on a blue uniform that now you have a target on your back. How would you feel going to work? And they look at me, I'm like, yeah, because every police officer that chooses to be a police officer wakes up with that feeling, knowing that just because they put on a blue uniform, that they have an extra target. I said, now imagine coming up to a car and you can't see into the backseat. Oh, man and that's a whole nother. So I've had several, several students say I never thought about how the police feel.

DAVIS: According to a report by the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund, officer deaths across the U.S. decreased nearly 40% in 2023. But if officers are constantly responding to life threatening or dangerous calls, their guards are up, especially if they’re being trained to believe that they are the target.

Sometimes Kimberly walks into the classroom with a hoodie on, sunglasses, braids, and other ways to conceal her face.

SOUNDBITE ST. CLAIR: If this was your first impression of me, you understand, it's my posture, it’s my position, it’s who I am. But to be taken serious, I know this, this ain't the place for the hoodie. I want you to see my eyes because I want you to be comfortable with me, I'm gonna move my hair, I position my hair in a way that you can see me. And if I want to take it up. Same girl, right? Same girl, I got jeans, I got braids just like you. But I'm giving a whole nother impression.

[MUSIC]

DAVIS: Ok, before we go a little further, let me just talk through some of this, because while some of you may understand this method, I’m sure there are some who are a little, well, skeptical, maybe even angry. So I’m a 30 year old Black man, 5’ 6 ½” or 5’ 7’’ if no one’s around to prove it and I have dreads. Now I didn’t have dreads in high school but my parents told me there were certain things I could and couldn’t do. They warned me about where and when I should put my hoodie over my head, they even warned me about running in certain neighborhoods. It wasn’t that I was doing anything wrong. It didn’t matter. They weren’t saying I was. They’re saying I needed to do everything I could to make sure I’m safe.

If a white person saw me running with a hoodie over my head, God forbid by myself, could they suspect I was up to no good? Maybe. And that’s what they didn’t want. They wanted to make sure that I took every precaution I could to make sure I was safe. And that’s kind of what Kimberly is saying here. She’s not saying dreads or braids or hoodies are bad, it's actually the opposite. It's that what someone else perceives as a danger, what do we do about it and how do we make it so that that person doesn’t see us as a problem?

And on top of all of that, you can still get harassed or shot by an officer. None of these are get out of jail free cards. So does that mean the responsibility is on the driver or is it just a strange world we live in that ordinary people have to take matters into their own hands?

ST. CLAIR: I can't make sense of it. Because I don't think we should be here just like I don't think we should have to run around and teach children how to protect themselves from school shooters. It's crazy that we're here. We can do better, right. And I'm all for doing better. But something has to be done now.

[MUSIC]

ST. CLAIR: We should have never gotten here, okay. And there were some things that could be done differently. And that's, that's, that's why I'm here for change. So my goal is not only to stop here, but once I create a relationship, because I think the relationship with police officers, they had to understand that, hey, this is for you. This is not anti-police, to be pro-civilians life does not mean to be anti-police. You know what I mean? And so once they understood that, and I'm like, everything about this is for your safety, from the ability to use with one hand that the ease of visibility is 100% for you, that they lighten up.

DAVIS: Kimberly’s program isn’t just about training young drivers. It’s about training all drivers and training police on how they should interact with drivers. She’s trying to make the police Doc Dash program an accredited course so officers will be incentivized to take the class. She says she’s gained the support of several local departments and presented the program to the Missouri Department of Public Safety leaders. She also received an additional $60,000 from the Department of Transportation for the 2024-2025 fiscal year.

But is this fair, especially if a portion of that responsibility falls on the driver? And how do you introduce this to police officers? How do they take this — and do they have to accept that they’re a part of a racist system? Well, Kimberly says her conversations with police can be challenging.

ST. CLAIR: When you talk about the whole Mike Brown situation, the predatory nature of that entire police department, okay. We had lived like this for decades, everybody knew not to go to Jennings, not to go to Ferguson. This was just what it was all the time, okay, everybody knew that. And so what, what, what that whole situation did, is blew the complete top off because shortly after that, they did a whole deep dive and saw how racist that entire organization is. And it has to be broken down organization by organization, because that is a leadership issue. That is a leadership, you're not going to tell me that you didn't know that they were behaving like that, you know. And so there has been some there has been some changes, you know, with bad things, sometimes it's the catalyst for for change to happen. Because I think at that moment, that's when the neighborhood realized I'm gonna start really getting in and figuring out who we're voting for. Who will we bring in the office? Who are these people we're hiring? Let's get more invested in the system, um, that is oppressing us.

[MUSIC]

DAVIS: At the end of the day, Kenny and Kimberly are just people who are trying to make sense of a world that isn’t really trying to make sense. And even though she has the backing of police, MoDOT and schools, it’s Kimberly leading the change — because she didn’t see enough of it happening.

After Mike was killed there were a lot of reports, studies and foundations that said things need to change. Policing needs to change, education needs to change, healthcare needs to change, prisons need to change. Body cameras need to be on and that will stop unarmed police killings.

So what was promised — and what has and hasn’t happened in the ten years since? Well, like Kimberly, Kenny and so many other people, they’re taking matters into their own hands — outside of systems — because they want to see things changed. They want a better world for themselves, their families and other Black people.

And that’s what Mike's death represented to so many people, the promise, or at the very least, the possibility that things could change for Black and Brown people across broken systems.

This season, we’re examining the legacy of Mike Brown, why the truths exposed by Ferguson are still an open wound a decade later and what happens next.

I’m Chad Davis. This is We Live Here: 10 Years After The Ferguson Uprising.

[THEME MUSIC]

This episode was produced by Chad Davis and edited by Emily Woodbury, with production assistance by Danny Wickentowski and Ulaa Kuziez, and audio mixing and podcast design by Greg Munteanu.

We received editorial guidance from Brian Heffernan. Kris Husted is our Executive Producer.

Special thanks to Kameel Stanley and Holly Edgell, with additional reporting by Andrea Henderson, Kate Grumke and Elaine Cha.

Our theme music was inspired by Cassie Morgan— and remixed by Mvstermind.

We Live Here is a production of St. Louis Public Radio, in collaboration with the Midwest Newsroom. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next week.

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