"I rather die on my feet than live on my knees": Anti-Racism Activism in Post-Ferguson St. Louis

Abstract

At the 9th of August 2014, the African-American teenager Michael Brown was shot by a white police officer. The shooting initially was followed by weeks of demonstrations in the streets of Ferguson. This made people aware of the still existing racism in the modern-day society of the United States. Therefore, the activism in St. Louis since August 9 can be seen both as new beginning and as a continuation of a struggle that has been going on for centuries. To explain the increased engagement in activism after August 9 with its own strategies and methods, this research aimed to construe how the motivations of anti-racism activists in St. Louis are shaped by the broader context of experienced and perceived racism, the individual and collective memories of historical injustice and the idea of citizenship within the nation-state. This research is conducted by means of a qualitative research design based on ethnographic fieldwork in St. Louis from February till April 2016. This case study explores the construction of social movements and of anti-racism activism in particular. In the conclusion, it is argued that most of the activists against racism in St. Louis are mainly motivated by an inevitable engagement to racism. Thereby the three main motivations for activists to fight against racism are related to different phases of recovering from the slavery history as a cultural trauma.