Photographing Life in Ferguson a Year After Michael Brown’s Death

5 minute read

One year ago, on August 9, the quiet St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Mo. made the national headlines. The body of a black teenager, Michael Brown, who was fatally shot by white police officer Darren Wilson, lay in the street on Canfield Drive for four hours. The community was enraged. Protests gave way to looters, which prompted an unprecedented use of police force.

Images of tear gas clouds and militarized police lines became commonplace. However, behind the violence and the headlines, was a community with deep-seeded, structural issues. Mike Brown was just one member of a struggling community and a struggling generation, in Ferguson.

Mark Kauzlarich first began photographing in Ferguson a week after Brown’s death. He was, at the time, finishing up a master’s degree at the University of Missouri just two hours away. He received an assignment from Reuters to photograph the community during the day, while staff photographers rested in order to capture the intense action at night. Photographing in the daytime, Kauzlarich was able to make connections with the community and see past the chaos of late-night curfews and tear gas that graced America’s front pages and TV screens.

“In that chaotic situation, the first few nights, no one seemed to contextualize what happened against the bigger picture of issues people had been facing in Ferguson,” Kauzlarich tells TIME, “so it was all very confusing.” As he started spending more time with the citizens of Ferguson, Kauzlarich began to discover a recurring narrative. The community harbored a mix of anger and disappointment for many years, he says. They felt they were never given a chance, by the police and society, to succeed. “Initially I assumed I was expected to make dramatic images,” Kauzlarich recalls, “[but] towards the end of my first week in Ferguson, I was seeking out those quiet, and often tired, scenes as much as possible.”

Residents clean up debris from demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri
Resident John West hands a rose to a police officer during cleanup efforts in Ferguson, Mo. on Aug. 19, 2014.Mark Kauzlarich—Reuters

After a few weeks most media organizations left Ferguson, but what is now the Black Lives Matter movement has continued to gain steam. The events in Ferguson radically changed the way America has been dealing with race and police violence. Kauzlarich says it was important to him that if connections were drawn “between what happened in Ferguson and similar incidents in the United States, like the riots in Baltimore, they needed to at least see the faces of those who lived in Ferguson instead of just imagining tear gas and burning buildings.”

With this in mind, Kauzlarich returned to Ferguson about a dozen times, embarking on a long-term, ongoing documentary project that he plans to continue for several years. For him, there is an important distinction between covering news events and covering daily issues the community faces.

Getting access to photograph subjects in such an intimate manner wasn’t easy, he says. But after gaining the trust of several individuals, Kauzlarich was invited to birthday parties and elementary school graduations, with the hope that they could play a part in “getting a different side of Ferguson out into the world,” he says.

Kauzlarich’s photographs provide a glimpse into the daily, pressurized struggles with law enforcement that brought about the events of last year. Citizens, mostly those in the black community, can be fined for ambiguous code violations for having unkempt lawns or “disturbing the peace.” The city of Ferguson profited from these fines to a tune of $2.46 million in 2013, according to a scathing Justice Department investigation. This practice fostered a culture of distrust between the black community and police, rather than a feeling of protection.

“In general, I wanted to show a broad cross section of the community,” Kauzlarich says. Focusing, not on racism or police brutality, but simply everyday activities. This includes the white population of Ferguson, which was notably less keen on being photographed, in fear of being cast as the cause of the city’s problems.

Many of the young men Kauzlarich grew up with struggling parents. They nourish hope for better futures for themselves and for their own kids. But, they say, they are plagued by a cycle of minor arrests and fines that bar them from having a clean record or savings for college. This adds to already prevalent gun violence and drug usage in the community.

“I think for [these] young men,” Kauzlarich says, “it’s hard enough to know what your own future will hold, so they don’t talk often about their hopes for the future of Ferguson.”

Mark Kauzlarich is a freelance photographer based in Wisconsin.

Marisa Schwartz Taylor is an Associate Photo Editor at TIME.com. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter.

Read Next: Inside Ferguson With the Photographers of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Tee Jay Banks surveys the street while hanging out with friends in the Bermuda neighborhood of Ferguson, Mo. Banks, stopped attending college because of high costs but was hoping to save up money to return to school.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Meech greets a friend while hanging out in the Bermuda neighborhood of Ferguson, Mo. Their group calls themselves Fatty Gang, named after their friend, 20 year-old Antwon "Fatty" Smith, who was shot to death in February, 2015.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Fatty Gang, a group of friends from Ferguson, Mo., hang out and drink on a Sunday night in April, 2015.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Darnell Smith hangs out with a group of friends at one of their parent's homes. Darnell's younger brother was Antwon "Fatty" Smith. Darnell was shot in the head on July 29 by someone who, according to friends, had asked him for gas money. Darnell was in a coma as of Aug. 2, 2015.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Maurice and Cal hang out at Rosalyn and Earl Carter's home on a Saturday night. Rosalyn Carter rules her block with an iron fist and does not allow gang activity to happen on her street, so some kids will hang out at her home instead.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Rosalyn Carter recalls her troubled life when she lived in the dangerous St. Louis suburb of Kinloch. She and her husband moved into Section 8 housing in Ferguson but circumstances have not been easy for her family, due in part to the repeated arrests of her husband for minor traffic violations.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Redd waits for a friend in his Cadillac Escalade before going to the liquor store to buy more Hennessey. Redd and his friends hang out on the street outside of a parent's home, under their watchful eye.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Kids play basketball on the corner of Halpin Drive and Lagonda Avenue where a young man named Demetrius "Trap" Stegall was killed in 2009. Trap was involved in a robbery and after a large group argument earlier that day, an associate of the person who was robbed returned to the corner and opened fire.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Families attend area Catholic school first grade softball games at fields behind the Blessed Theresa of Calcutta Catholic Church in Ferguson, Mo.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Grace Williams, a high school freshman from Ferguson, kisses Patrick Clinton, a sophomore, while at Forestwood Park. The two had been flirting for a few weeks but hadn't quite figured out if they were officially dating.Mark Kauzlarich—©2015, Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Raymond "Trip" Williams takes his 18-month-old daughter Rayne to the park near his mother's house in Ferguson, Mo. Trip, who is separated from Rayne's mother, recently secured a job in an effort to provide for his daughter better, motivated by seeing some of his friends grow up without both parents around.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
An historic house in the Old Ferguson West neighborhood.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
An abandoned house on Dupree Avenue that has been a point of contention for neighbors because it is used by local youth as a hang out to drink, do drugs, and play with their guns.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Richard, right, clears an overgrown yard of a rental house in the Bermuda neighborhood of Ferguson, Mo. Code enforcement officers are a common sight in the neighborhood and ticket people for long lawns and many discretionary violations like "disturbing the peace." Code enforcement accounted for $2.46 million dollars of the city's budget in 2013.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Courtney Smith, left, boxes his cousin Michael Hancock outside Hancock's stepfather's home. Eric Dillon, Hancock's stepfather and Smith's uncle says he was one of the few kids he grew up with that stayed out of jail and uses his experiences to be a strong influence on his son, step-son, and nephew.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Thomas White listens to a hymn after reading scripture at the Christ Love Divine Missionary Baptist Church in Ferguson, Mo. Most of the twenty parishioners and ministers at the small church on this particular Sunday were from outside of Ferguson.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Latonya Williams and her son Carlos Williams attend worship at the Christ Love Divine Missionary Baptist Church in Ferguson, Mo.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Rev. James Z. Williba, presiding minister at Christ Love Divine Missionary Baptist Church in Ferguson, Mo. Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Parishioners leave Christ Love Divine Missionary Baptist Church after Sunday worship. When the congregation bought the building 35 years ago from the original owners, a white church, they marched down the street to celebrate their first service. Someone in the (then predominately white) neighborhood called the police in confusion.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Raymon "Trip" Williams shows his tattoo dedicated to his best friend Demetrius "Trap" Stegall, who was shot and killed in Ferguson, Mo. in 2009.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
A group of friends hang out on Halpin Drive, just down the street from where their friend Demetrius "Trap" Stegall was shot and killed in 2009. They call this area "Trapville," in memory of their friend.Mark Kauzlarich
Ferguson Michael Brown One Year Later Mark Kauzlarich
Tee Jay Banks waits for friends to arrive before they go to a local recording studio. Banks and many of his friends are involved with music and some hope that rapping will be their ticket out of Ferguson.Mark Kauzlarich

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