The leader of Forward Through Ferguson said much still needs to be done 10 years after the Ferguson Commission released its report on systemic racism and inequities in the region.
The 2015 report detailed 189 calls to action and policy recommendations to address systemic racism, poverty, childhood well-being, police violence and economic inequity in the wake of the movement that sprung up after the killing of Michael Brown.
“Now, 10 years later, we are dealing with the fact that we really have not addressed fully all of those things,” said Annissa McCaskill, executive director of Forward Through Ferguson. “But we've identified, and we have made some progress.”
Forward Through Ferguson was created by the Ferguson Commission. Members were appointed by former Gov. Jay Nixon after Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson police officer, shot and killed Brown, an unarmed Black teen in 2014. The commission was tasked with investigating misconduct across police departments and municipalities as well as racial and economic disparities. The commission published the list of policy recommendations and calls to action that reimagined the power structures of the St. Louis area and the state.
Recommendations included appointing the state's attorney general to investigate police-involved killings, requiring review boards of police departments across municipalities, treating nonviolent offenses as civil violations and improving police officer training.
State and city officials have accomplished some of the recommendations, including raising the minimum wage, the Medicaid expansion and establishing a child care savings account for St. Louis Public Schools students, though efforts have been rolled back.
Forward Through Ferguson also established the Racial Healing and Justice Fund with the Deaconess Foundation. The fund comes from one of the calls to action to establish an endowment pool made up of community contributions to support businesses and organizations focused on racial equity. McCaskill said the fund has been handled by the Deaconess Foundation and will move to Forward Through Ferguson.
“The biggest thing that we have attempted to do with our mandate from the commission report was to create space and opportunities for change and collaboration,” McCaskill said. “And also, to be able to push the information forward and to also hold the seats of power to accountability right now.”
The calls to action led to the creation of equity indicators, data published in collaboration with Forward Through Ferguson, the United Way of Greater St. Louis and St. Louis. The indicators graded progress within policing and justice system reforms, economic inequities and childhood well-being on a points scale of 0 to 100.
Equity indicator data hasn’t been updated since 2018, when the overall score for the St. Louis area stood at 45.57 out of 100 while the scale for childhood well-being sat at 25.75 out of 100. McCaskill said the data doesn’t include updated numbers since the coronavirus pandemic or the May tornado.
The webpage has since been archived. A city spokesperson could not be reached for comment.
McCaskill said city officials said if Forward Through Ferguson wanted to update the website with the indicators, they could maybe collaborate on doing so.
But McCaskill said Forward Through Ferguson and other organizations are navigating difficult waters as major gifts have declined across racial equity and arts organizations across the region. Forward Through Ferguson laid off three staffers last week.
She said the organization is stable and the downsizing should help keep the organization stable for the next couple of years.
“We are in the unique position of knowing that, because we were able to contract and shrink ourselves, we have a good chance of getting through 2027, but I will not lie when I say that we will be scrapping and fighting,’” McCaskill said. “But at least now we have a fighting opportunity to do that.”
