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.”

A decade of activist achievements

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.”

There is still work to do

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.”

A movement meets national political change

By 2015, Ferguson activists were welcomed into the White House to work on the Obama administration’s plan. Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

While Donald Trump has embraced some criminal justice reforms such as First step acthe remained opposed to racial justice activists throughout his administration, and the movement was met with disdain on the right. In 2016, the then-Republican presidential candidate called Black Lives Matter “divisive” and blamed President Barack Obama for worsening race relations in the country.

Trump was president during the racial justice protests that emerged in the summer of 2020 after the killing of Floyd in Minneapolis. He POSTED during the protests, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” At that time, he signed an executive order encouraging better policing practices, but this has been criticized by some for failing to recognize what they see as systemic racial bias in policing.

At the beginning of his term, during a 2017 speech in New YorkTrump appears to support tougher treatment of people in police custody, speaking disparagingly of the police practice of shielding the heads of handcuffed suspects while they are placed in patrol cars.

Trump’s election has led many racial justice activists to shift their focus from individual police departments to how federal policies fund and protect police misconduct.

The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis

After a rocky Democratic presidential primary in which the candidates debated how to advance racial justice, the movement was reintroduced into politics when Chauvin killed Floyd in May 2020.

The ensuing global protests for racial justice upended American politics and shocked even many in the movement who had spent years advocating for policies that were suddenly brought into the mainstream, such as community emergency response teams , restrictions on police tactics and even redirection of police funding.

Floyd’s family members appeared at the 2020 Democratic National Convention after global protests; the following year, the party introduced a bill that would have enacted major police accountability reforms in its name.

The George Floyd Police Justice Act would have banned chokeholds and restraining orders like the one that led to Louisville police the killing of Breonna Taylor in her own house. It also allegedly created a database listing officers who had been disciplined for serious misconduct, among other measures.

The House passed it in 2021. But the Senate failed to reach a consensus.

Sit outside or sit at the table

Ella Jones was not seen running for office before the Ferguson protests. A minister and entrepreneur, Jones felt called to protest Brown’s killing, but said local Democratic leaders told her to run for mayor of Ferguson. She won a seat on the city council, and eventually was elected mayor.

“You can sit outside and yell at the system. However, you have to be at the table where politics is made. So some people can go into politics. Some people can start starting nonprofits, but it’s going to take all of us working together to make the change we really need,” Jones said. “You have to be at the table, where the politics are made.”

Ferguson’s district attorney, Wesley Bell, vowed to address police misconduct.

Bell told the AP in 2020 that lawmakers need to take a hard look at laws that provide protections from prosecution for police officers that ordinary citizens are not afforded.

“We see laws like this all over the country, and it’s something that handcuffs prosecutors in a number of ways when you’re going after officers who have committed unlawful force or police shootings,” Bell said.

In August beat Bush in a bitter Democratic primary for the US House.

Bush said he doesn’t know what he will do after he leaves Congress.

“But the fight is still here, and my boots are not far from me,” she said. “So people should have been asking, is she more dangerous in Congress or out of it?”

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