WASHINGTON (AP) — Cory Bush went from helping to run a informal movement for racial justice on winning two terms as a Missouri congresswoman, with a desk decorated with photos of families who have lost loved ones to police violence. One picture is of Michael Brown.

Brown’s death 10 years ago in Ferguson, Missouri, was a defining moment for The Racial Justice Movement in America. It has thrown into the global spotlight longstanding calls for reforms to the systems that subject millions of people to everything from economic discrimination to crime.

Many activists like Bush have gone from proclaiming “Black Lives Matter” to running for states, mayors, prosecutors, and the halls of Congress—and winning. Local legislation was passed to do everything from abolition of prisons and jails and school reform for elimination hair discrimination.

At least 30 states and Washington, DC, have enacted laws aimed at curbing abusive behavior since 2020, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. And while the past decade of racial justice activism has transformed politics, landmark reforms remain elusive, more than three dozen activists, elected officials and political operatives told The Associated Press.

“As we look at the steps we’ve taken, they ebb and flow,” said Bush, who was a longtime community organizer and pastor before becoming a Democratic representative. “We are still dealing with militarized police in the communities. We’re still dealing with police shootings.”

As the new generation of cellphone-wielding black activists rewrote the national conversation about policing, issues of public safety and racial justice moved to the center of American politics. Police cameras are spread. Tactics like choking were outlawed throughout the country.

Ferguson caused an immediate shift in how communities approach police reform and misconduct, said Svante Myrick, who was the youngest mayor of Ithaca, New York, from 2011 to 2021 before becoming president of People for the American Way, a progressive advocacy. group.

At least 150 reforms passed in localities and states throughout the country.

“I know that someone’s life was saved, that there was an officer, that there was a meeting where a police officer might have made a different decision if there hadn’t been 400 days of protest during the Ferguson riot,” he Bush said in an interview. “Maybe the world was waking up to the fact that it can’t just be an external strategy, there has to be an internal strategy as well.”

An example of this is Tishaura Jones, the first black woman to rule the city of St. Louis, who worked to end St. Louis’ “arrest and incarcerate” model of policing. Louis and put more emphasis on social service programs to help neighborhoods with the highest crime rates.

It’s a model that a new generation of leaders is putting into play at the national level.

“I’m someone who got into politics through the Black Lives Matter movement, after years of witnessing unjust crimes against black and brown people,” said Chi Ossé, a 26-year-old member of the New York City Council. York.

He used social media to organize protests for racial justice after white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was killed. George Floydwho was black, in 2020, triggering a massive new wave of protests. “It turns out that I have a different kind of leadership style in my own community than the previous City Council members who represented this district.”

Lawmakers in Washington initially shied away from the Black Lives Matter movement.

In 2015, then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told three Black Lives Matter activists that they should focus on changing laws instead of changing hearts. And a 2016 memo from the House Democratic campaign arm told politicians to limit the number of Black Lives Matter activists present at public events or meet with organizers privately.

Ferguson marked a new phase. Perhaps for the first time, a highly visible mass protest movement for justice for a single victim was born organically—not convened by members of the clergy or centered in the church—and often connected by mobile phones and backed by hip-hop.

Brown’s death and the treatment of Black Lives Matter protesters in the days that followed also led many Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders to to an internal account. Organizations and individuals of all ages were encouraged to come off the fringes.

“We had gains,” Bush said. “I wanted to bring the movement to the House of Representatives, and I feel like I was able to do that.”