What Started in Ferguson Taught Me That I Belong

I can still remember where I was on August 9th, 2014. I was at work at my desk at the bank taking a break from banking customers struggling to pay their mortgages. I scrolled on my phone hoping to pass time on my favorite social media app at that time, Twitter. As I scrolled my timeline I came across an image that made me sit up in my seat. Those were the days long before a trigger warning or a sensitive warning. The image that I saw was somebody’s baby lying in the street with a pool of blood staining and streaming across the cement beneath them. That baby, we would all learn within a matter of hours was Michael Brown Jr., and that street he was lying in was called Canfield Drive in Ferguson, Mo. Brown lost his life that day.

This image that I saw over and over again, forever stained in my memory, was a cultural assault that would lead to a formidable movement called Black Lives Matter.

No one demonstrated to the world that Black Lives Matter more than those in Ferguson, who were moved to protest in the streets and take brave, courageous actions to ensure that the world never forgot what they did to a Black young man for walking down the middle of the street. The courage it took for a community to share their power with each other inspired a generation of millions of people to take action—and to never look back.

Their protest also inspired my own analysis, and what I was willing to do to demand justice. Ferguson organizers taught us all how to protest. The Women’s March and the racial reckoning that occurred during the summer of 2020 would not have happened without the Ferguson uprising that resulted from Brown’s death. For that, I believe we owe Ferguson organizers more than a thank you. The righteous rage demonstrated there was the quintessential action that led to America’s long reckoning with the sins of its past, by creating the space for many movements to emerge that centralized conversations on race, class, and gender that are still shaping the world today.

My endless gratitude, admiration, respect, and love for Ferguson is forever. And I pray none of us ever forget.

Read More: How Ferguson Woke Us Up

Ten years is a long time for most but an even longer time for those of us who know what it’s like to lose someone—or even yourself. Ten years ago, I found myself homeless, without purpose, and deeply desiring a new path forward. I thought that there was no other option for me but to suffer and become a shell of myself.

I was deeply inspired by the people in Ferguson who looked like me and reminded me of my family—the community that used their voices to declare “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” as a rallying cry in response to the actions of an officer who saw Black life as disposable. It was the voices of the protestors in Ferguson that reminded me that I may have been without a home, but I was not without a voice. It’s that voice that has carried me far and wide, from the White House and to communities across this country who lacked resources and support much like I did 10 years ago.

Ferguson inspired me to never give up and to never let anyone get in the way of creating what I knew was necessary to support myself and my community. Many would have me believe that being Black, poor, and transgender meant there was no space for me.  And had I not seen women staring down armored trucks and millions of people taking to social media to join in dismay, anger, and sorrow, I probably would’ve believed the same. Ferguson taught me and that there was no space I didn’t belong. The only spaces I could not align with were the spaces that did not believe in the humanity of all Black people. There was no compromise on this for me.

This realization led to me founding the nation’s leading Black trans-founded organization exclusively dedicated to protecting and defending Black transgender lives, The Marsha P. Johnson Institute. We were born out of the rage and sorrow of Ferguson. We were born out of the rage and sorrow that grows from learning the ever-expanding list of unarmed Black people wrongly killed.

I remember who I was before I knew so many names and stories of injustices. I remember who I was before The Marsha P. Johnson Institute. And I remember who I was before Ferguson. I was young, free, lost, afraid, but optimistic that the world believed in young Black people like me. However, over the last 10 years I’ve learned to question that truth. With an increase in anti-trans legislation and the regular occurrence of unjust killings of unarmed Black people, such as Sonya Massey most recently, we are constantly reminded that are fight is still ongoing.

Read More: Policing’s Illusion of Safety

I’ll always remember that Ferguson saved me and gave me a model for all that I could be as an organizer, and more importantly as a Black woman. Although there have been many sleepless nights filled with anxiety and doubt, coupled by numerous tragic losses—including several murders and deaths of activists I looked up to and whose insights will forever guide me—I’ve never forgotten that the Black imagination of Ferguson led a resistance movement that changed the way we talked about politics and race in America. So much so that unprecedented firsts are still happening today—like Vice President Kamala Harris announcing her run the presidency.

Great efforts have been made to interrupt the power of a community like Ferguson, and its influence on people like me who need a reminder that our lives in fact did matter. That we should fight like hell to preserve them. And that we didn’t and wouldn’t have to fight alone.

The Black imagination is what fueled us all to join Ferguson in the streets and in our own communities—to take action as we learned more and more names of Black people murdered by the police. It is the Black imagination that led me to believe that despite how awful the outcomes continue to be, we as the people who bear witness to these atrocities are indebted to Ferguson organizers for extending their humanity to us all by taking brave action to hold the police accountable for their wrongdoings.

Ferguson sparked an inextinguishable flame. In it, we saw ourselves more fully. And that ignited a global movement to encourage communities to pursue freedom, safety, and justice for all. I am because we are. I am because of Ferguson, Mo. Thank you for the tradition that will always be carried on.