“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes”– FTF April Recap

An opening note from David Dwight IV, Executive Director and Lead Catalyst at Forward Through Ferguson

To read the full April Recap newsletter, click here.

When the Ferguson Commission embraced the charge — five years ago — to look unflinchingly at the root causes of racial inequity, they knew #Ferguson wasn’t the first racialized crisis this region had experienced and it wouldn’t be the last. They knew undoing and redesigning generational systems that were created to privilege white St. Louisans and neighborhoods over others would take will, analysis, people power, and time.

FTF’s logo: the abbreviation “STL” with an arrow pointing up and to the right on a blue background.

In this moment of crisis, we at FTF have shifted in some areas to meet today’s urgent needs and in others dug our heels in, more determined than ever. A few ways we’re pushing for equity include:

• joining with partners to successfully advocate for immediate policy changes on utilities, evictions, and other issues.
• advocating for regional COVID-19 relief funds to ensure dollars flow not just to the usual suspects, but to grassroots- and people-of-color-led organizations often locked out of traditional funding.
• supporting the Regional Response Team with data and research needs.
• leaning into our storytelling role by publicly sharing difficult truths.
• hosting intentional virtual spaces for advocates to process, recharge, and plan action steps.

What frustrates me the most is that you could open up the Ferguson Commission and For The Sake of All reports to any page and find a community-sourced, policy call to action that — had it been prioritized and implemented by leaders in our region — would have protected the lives of Black and Brown St. Louisans and made our whole region more resilient in the process.

David Dwight wears a “Racial Equity Matters To Me” sweatshirt and looks off to the right, motioning with his hands as he presents.

It is never too early for us to plan and prepare for how we will hold our leaders and ourselves accountable for this dire cycle of studying systemic racism after a crisis and then sliding back to the status quo rather than addressing the root causes of inequity.

Understanding our present requires understanding the past actions and inaction that brought us here. With this understanding, people power, and the will, we can chart a different future.

— David Dwight IV, Executive Director, Lead Strategy Catalyst, Forward Through Ferguson