Growing up in St. Louis, I never had any racial problems outside in the community, but the school I’m going to is very diverse and has different racial groups and cultures there, but there are also groups there that will say, “I can’t play with you because you’re black,” but I guess it never clicked until the Mike Brown things started happening. It really showed how people are racist still, 50 years later.
The description of Michael Brown was just like so close to my cousins and my brother, and I just felt that could’ve been any of them. So I felt like I had to go out and stop it before it could happen to anyone I knew.
After Michael Brown’s death, St. Louis has been more aware of the racial problems that we have but it seems to have gotten worse. Michael Brown showed who the racist people were, no matter if they were your friends or your family because the different views just made you see people’s true colors.
I’ve lost lots and lots of friends. I went to a specific church and after the Mike Brown incident, everyone at the church just stopped talking to me and I’m only in contact with one of the people still that went to that church, and that’s still very little contact.
I continued to protest because I had to make my future better and help make kids’ [futures] after me better. It’s just like friends come and go, so you just have to know when they’re gone, you keep fighting. You don’t need them to fight with you, you have yourself.