National

Few Candidates File for Ferguson Election Despite Protests

Published

12 years ago

January 21, 2015

In this Sept. 9, 2014 file photo, Marurice Brown raises his arms during a public comments portion of a meeting of the Ferguson City Council, back right, in Ferguson, Mo. Candidates for the first municipal election in Ferguson since a fatal police shooting brought the St. Louis suburb international notoriety face a filing deadline Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2015. Ferguson is nearly 70 percent black, all but one of its elected leaders is white. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

In this Sept. 9, 2014 file photo, Maurice Brown raises his arms during a public comments portion of a meeting of the Ferguson City Council, back right, in Ferguson, Mo. Candidates for the first municipal election in Ferguson since a fatal police shooting brought the St. Louis suburb international notoriety face a filing deadline Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2015. Ferguson is nearly 70 percent black, all but one of its elected leaders is white. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

ALAN SCHER ZAGIER, Associated Press

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Ferguson’s first municipal election since a fatal police shooting sparked months of protests and exposed the city’s deep racial divide drew relatively little interest from prospective candidates as Tuesday’s filing deadline passed.

Three of the St. Louis suburb’s six City Council seats are up for election on April 7 and none of the three incumbents decided to seek re-election. Three of the eight residents who did declare as candidates waited until hours before Tuesday’s late afternoon filing deadline.

Ferguson was roiled by sometimes violent protests after 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was black and unarmed, was shot to death by Ferguson officer Darren Wilson, who is white, in August. A St. Louis County grand jury declined in November to indict Wilson, who left the force days later.

At the time of the shooting, just three of 53 police officers were black in a city with an African-American population of nearly 70 percent. All but one of the six council members are white, as is Mayor James Knowles, who resisted calls for his own resignation and said he plans to seek a third term as mayor in 2017.

“The council can still be responsive to the city without the customary ‘heads have to roll’ response,” Knowles said. “If that’s what the citizens of Ferguson demanded, there would be at least one person running under the banner of, ‘They all have to go.’ And that’s just not happened.”

Knowles said that two of three incumbents who are stepping down decided long before Brown’s death not to seek three more years in office, primarily due to work obligations.

Activists who initially sought to oust Ferguson elected leaders and Police Chief Tom Jackson, who also remains on the job, said many residents remain disillusioned with local politics. Others believe the most effective way to push for new laws and policy changes on issues such as police conduct and voting district boundaries is to agitate from outside rather than to negotiate from within, said protest leader Ashley Yates, co-founder of Millennial Activists United.

“It’s more about building power within our own community,” she said. “Ferguson really gave us an idea of what the City Council’s powers are — it’s not much. And there’s a realization that the system has failed black America at large. So why operate in a system that does not work?”

Like many small cities, Ferguson relies on a professional administrator, its city manager, for most day-to-day governing decisions. Elected officials typically focus on items such as spending priorities and budget approvals.

The new candidates include Wesley Bell, 40, a criminal justice instructor who previously lost a Democratic primary for St. Louis County Council.

Bell is the son of a police officer and serves as a municipal court judge in Velda City, part of a cluster of inner-ring communities in north St. Louis County that has faced criticism for heavily relying on revenue from municipal traffic courts to fund city government. His ward includes the Canfield Green apartment complex outside of which Brown was killed.

The candidates also include a familiar face: former Ferguson Mayor Brian Fletcher, who helped launch an “I Love Ferguson” campaign to bolster the city’s image.

The only seat to attract more than two candidates was in Ward 1, where Doyle McClellan, a network security administrator at an Illinois community college and two-year Ferguson resident, said he showed up at City Hall as soon as candidacy petitions could be filed in mid-December. He is one of four candidates in the ward.

McClellan, 46, said he was joined at the time by two other prospective candidates but had expected a bigger crowd, especially because would-be office seekers only need to collect signatures from 50 registered voters and pay a $10 filing fee, which is refunded to candidates who earn at least 5 percent of votes cast.

“I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a line of people,” said McClellan, who said he hopes to appeal to centrist voters turned off both by protesters looking to “retaliate” against the city and the “hard line, old-guard types who don’t take the protesters seriously at all.”

___

Follow Alan Scher Zagier on Twitter at http://twitter.com/azagier

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Up Next

Supreme Court Sharply Divided Over Housing Bias Cases

Don't Miss

John Lewis Tells His Truth About ‘Selma’

Oakland Post

Click to comment

Community

Four Candidates, Including Incumbent Barbara Lee, Qualify for Oakland Mayor’s Race

POST NEWS GROUP — Four candidates, including incumbent Mayor Barbara Lee, filed their papers to run for office by last Friday’s deadline, and the City Clerk issued a list this week of those who are qualified to run.

Published

17 hours ago

August 15, 2026

bpusa-syndication

View of downtown Oakland, California and City Hall. iStock photo.

By Post Staff

The four mayoral candidates who will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot are:

Brenda Grisham. A business owner in East Oakland and public safety advocate, Grisham led the successful recall campaign against Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price. As part of her platform, she pledges to work with local, state, and federal partners to secure stricter gun control measures and investments in community violence intervention programs.

Barbara Lee. A former congressional representative and state Assembly member, Lee was elected by voters in a special election last year for a two-year term. Now running for a four-year term, she points out that her administration achieved major successes in addressing some of the city’s major challenges, including balancing the city budget, dramatically reducing crime, and making significant inroads into homelessness and illegal dumping.

Mindy Pechenuk. An educator and activist, Pechenuk is a registered Republican and supporter of Lyndon LaRouche, who has been described by observers as a conspiracy theorist and cult leader. She ran unsuccessfully for mayor in last year’s special election and for the at-large council seat in 2024. She seeks to end Oakland’s police commission and MACRO and invest in more police while launching a new local war on drugs.

Julius Robinson. While little information is available so far about Robinson, he was quoted in a KTVU story about Thao’s recall, stating that people in Oakland want to come together as a community but lack infrastructure and leadership.

bpusa-syndication

Posts by bpusa-syndication

Black History

Oakland Observes Black August with Block Parties, Film Showings, Workshops

POST NEWS GROUP — Beginning in 1979 in San Quentin State Prison, the Black Guerrilla Family called for the remembrance of political prisoner George Jackson and his brother Jonathan Jackson who were assassinated in the early 1970s. George Jackson was considered a political prisoner in that it was the anti-Black justice system that led to his incarceration for armed robbery with a sentence of one year-to-life in 1960.

Published

19 hours ago

August 15, 2026

bpusa-syndication

George Jackson wrote two books: “Soledad Brother,” and “Blood in My Eye” before her was killed in an attempt to escape prison on Aug. 21, 1971.

By Jana Lang, Propel Youth Reporter

Study. Train. Fast. Fight.

These are the four tenets of Black August, a month dedicated to commemorating the sacrifices of political prisoners and Black revolutionaries in the struggle for Black liberation.

Observers are urged to study the history of the Black struggle for freedom, train their bodies for health and self-defense, fast to cleanse the mind, body, and spirit, and fight ongoing oppression alongside their communities and local political organizations.

Beginning in 1979 in San Quentin State Prison, the Black Guerrilla Family called for the remembrance of political prisoner George Jackson and his brother Jonathan Jackson who were assassinated in the early 1970s. George Jackson was considered a political prisoner in that it was the anti-Black justice system that led to his incarceration for armed robbery with a sentence of one year-to-life in 1960.

While in prison, George befriended fellow prisoner W.L. Nolen, who introduced him to the works of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, and Frantz Fanon. This radicalization coupled with his experiences of violence while imprisoned led to him writing and publishing two books, “Soledad Brother” (1970), and “Blood in my Eye” (1972). In January of 1970, George and two other prisoners were charged with murdering a corrections officer at Soledad State Prison in Monterey County.

On Aug. 7, 1970, Jonathan Jackson burst into a Marin County courtroom armed with a shotgun to demand the freedom of the Soledad Brothers. He, along with the inmates he freed, was shot and killed while driving away. This involved one of the Black Panther Party’s most notable associates, Angela Davis, because the shotgun was registered in her name. She was later acquitted of charges of conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder in 1972.

On Aug. 21, 1971, George Jackson was assassinated by a corrections officer after attempting to escape and free other inmates. As a result, there were uprisings and protests within prisons all over the country that year, calling forth resistance against racial oppression and mass incarceration.

Since its outset, Black August has evolved across the country, taking many forms to honor this history and embody the four tenets.

In Oakland, the upcoming Black August Experience, hosted by Youth Alive! and the East Oakland Boxing Association (EOBA), is a free, family-friendly event celebrating the legacy of Black August. Activities include free food and drinks, a kids’ activity zone, interactive workshops, live cooking and boxing demonstrations, and more.

Happening on Aug. 21 from 4-8 p.m. at the EOBA Patio, Carolyn Flynn, director of administration at EOBA, said the event, in its second year, will be an opportunity to engage with people in person through food, shared space, and education.

“We do regular classes in education, and those are ongoing programs that we offer, but we wanted to have [an opportunity] for our neighbors to utilize this space.” Combined with Youth Alive’s work in community violence prevention and youth leadership, this event surely aims to bring the Oakland community together to capture what Black August means today.

Here are additional Black August events happening in Oakland:

Forum and Community Discussion hosted by the Oakland Liberation Center, 1499 Fruitvale Ave., Aug. 14, 7 p.m.

“George Jackson/San Quentin” Screening hosted by Nostalgic for Nothing Cinema at Moments Co-Op, 410 13th St., Aug. 16, doors at 6 p.m., show at 6:30 p.m. (Masks required and scent-free)

Commemorating the Struggle, Building the Altar for Liberation: Black August at Bandung Books, 2269 International Blvd., Aug. 23rd, 1-5 p.m.

Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS), will host “Black August: The Arc of Liberation” at Oakland City Hall on Sat. Aug. 29, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.