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Michael Brown’s Mother Will Run For Ferguson City Council

Michael Brown’s Mother Will Run For Ferguson City Council

Written by Ann Brown

Apr 27, 2018

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Michael Brown was an unarmed Black teenager who was shot and killed on Aug. 9, 2014, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, in Ferguson, Mo. Wilson was never punished for the killing of the 18-year-old, whose murder many saw as a hate crime. And while the killing took place four years ago, Brown’s mother, Lezley McSpadden, has never stopped fighting for justice for her son. Now, McSpadden is considering running for City Council in Ferguson. If she elected she will be supervising the same police department responsible for her son’s death.

During the time Brown was fatally shot, the Ferguson City Council was predominantly white. There was one Black council member. This has changed since 2014, as  half of the six-person council is Black.

“What I’m contemplating is running for City Council of Ferguson,” McSpadden said during a panel on police brutality at Harvard University earlier this week. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, her announcement was met with the crowd chanting, “Run, Lezley! Run!”

“We have to get behind people who look like us and get them in these elected seats so that they can really do what’s right by the community,” McSpadden added. “And I’m going to start with me by running for Ferguson City Council.”

McSpadden has never stopped moving forward and pushing for change. “In the years following the death of her son Michael Brown at the hands of Ferguson, Mo., police, Lezley McSpadden has completed her high school diploma, written a book, campaigned for social justice and joined Hillary Clinton on her 2016 bid for the presidency,” The Root reported.

According to Mother Jones, if McSpadden does run she will become the second parent of a high-profile Black victim of racial violence to run for elected office this year. Earlier this year, Lucy McBath, the mother of Jordan Davis, a 17-year-old Jacksonville, Fla., teen who was shot and killed by a white man because Davis was playing his music too loudly, announced her bid for a U.S. congressional seat to represent her home state of Georgia.

Lesley McSpadden
In this Dec. 11, 2015, file photo, Lesley McSpadden, the mother of Michael Brown, attends an event by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in St. Louis. McSpadden could soon have oversight over the Ferguson, Missouri, police department connected to her son’s death. On Tuesday, April 2, 2019, voters in Ferguson will select city council members in three of the St. Louis suburb’s six wards. McSpadden is among three candidates running in Ward 3. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

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