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Missouri Police Stopped Blacks More Than Whites in 2014

Published

11 years ago

June 2, 2015

Protestors blocking Florissant Road raise their hands after being approached by police officers who asked them to stop blocking the street in front of the Ferguson police department on Sunday, Aug. 10, 2014, one day after a Ferguson officer shot and killed Michael Brown. (AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Robert Cohen)

JIM SUHR, Associated Press

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The disparity in the rate at which Missouri authorities pulled over black drivers compared with whites last year surged to its highest level since the state began compiling data 15 years ago, the state’s top law enforcer said Monday.

Attorney General Chris Koster’s annual report analyzing traffic stops by race found that African-American drivers were 75 percent more likely than white motorists to be stopped on Missouri’s roads based on their proportionate share of the driving-age population. That’s nine percentage points higher than last year. In 2000, blacks were 31 percent more likely than whites to be pulled over.

The report is Missouri’s first since the racial unrest that followed the shooting death last August in Ferguson of Michael Brown, a black, unarmed 18-year-old, by a white police officer. Koster’s report shows that black drivers in the predominantly black St. Louis suburb were stopped last year at a disparity rate lower than the statewide average.

Koster cautioned that with 622 law enforcement agencies, there is no single explanation as to why the disparities exist and that the statistics don’t prove law officers are making vehicle stops based on the driver’s race. But Koster said in a statement that his office’s analysis of nearly 1.7 million 2014 traffic stops “provides law enforcement, legislators and the public a starting point as they consider improvements to process and changes to policy to address these issues.”

Law enforcement officers say racial disparities in traffic stops may appear higher in some predominantly white cities because of interstate highways or retail and tourist destinations that attract minority drivers who are not part of the local population.

The report shows that Hispanic drivers were stopped at a lower rate than white or black drivers. Law officers searched Hispanic and black drivers at a higher rate than white drivers. But of those who were searched, whites were found with contraband at a higher rate than black and Hispanic drivers.

Roughly five dozen law enforcement agencies indicated they made no traffic stops last year, Koster said.

Even though Ferguson fared better than the statewide average, that city’s policing and municipal courts were widely scrutinized after Brown’s shooting death touched off angry, sometimes violent protests. The case also led to demonstrations in other cities and spawned a national “Black Lives Matter” movement seeking changes in how police deal with minorities.

A grand jury and the Justice Department cleared the white officer in Brown’s death, but the federal agency did release a scathing report that cited racial bias and profiling in Ferguson policing and in a profit-driven municipal court system that frequently targeted blacks.

Ferguson’s police chief, municipal court judge and city manager resigned following the Justice Department’s probe.

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Black Artists in America, Installation Three Wraps at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens

TRI-STATE DEFENDER — With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

Published

2 weeks ago

March 24, 2026

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By Candace A. Gray | Tri-State Defender

The tulips gleefully greet those who enter the gates at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens on an almost spring day. More than 650,000 bulbs of various hues are currently on display. And they are truly breathtaking.

Inside the gallery, and equally as breathtaking, is the “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” exhibit, which runs through Sunday, March 29. This is the third installment of a three-part series that started years ago and illustrates part of the Black experience through visual arts in the 20th century.

“This story picks up where part two left off,’’ said Kevin Sharp, the Linda W. and S. Herbert Rhea director for the Dixon. “This era is when we really start to see the emergence of these important Black artists’ agency and freedom shine through. They start to say and express what they want to, and it was a really beautiful time.”

With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

“Though [Davis] was from LA, he actually lived in Memphis for a decade,” said Sharp. “He was a dean at Memphis College of Art, and later opened the first gallery in New York owned and operated by black curators.”

Another featured artist is former NFL player, Ernie Barnes. His work is distinctive. Where have you seen one of his most popular paintings, Sugar Shack? On the end scene and credits of the hit show “Good Times.” His piece Saturday Night, Durham, North Carolina, 1974 is in this collection.

Memphis native James Little’s “The War Baby: The Triptych” is among more than 50 works featured in “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, the final installment of a three-part series highlighting the impact and evolution of Black artists through 2011.

The exhibit features other artists with Memphis ties, including abstract painter James Little, who was raised in a segregated Memphis and attended Memphis Academy of Art (before it was Memphis College of Art). He later moved to New York, became a teacher and an internationally acclaimed fixture in the art world in 2022 when he was named a Whitney Biennial selected artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Other artists like Romare Bearden, who had a Southern experience but lived up North, were featured in all three installments.

“During this period of time, he was a major figure,” said Sharp. “He wrote one of the first books on the history of African American art during a time when there were more Black academics, art teachers, more Black everything!”

Speaking of Black educators, Sharp said the head curator behind this tri-part series and Dixon’s partner in the arts is Earnestine Jenkins, Ph.D., an art history professor at the University of Memphis, who also earned a Master of Arts degree from Memphis State University (now UofM). “We began working with Dr. Jenkins in 2018,” he said.

Sharp explained that it takes a team of curators, registrars, counterparts at other museums, and more, about three years to assemble an exhibit like this. It came together quite seamlessly, he added. Each room conjured up more jaw-dropping “wows” than the one before it. Each piece worked with the others to tell the story of Black people and their collective experience during this time period.

One of the last artists about whom Sharp shared information was Bettye Saar, who will turn 100 years old this year. She’s been working in Los Angeles for 80 years and is finally getting her due. Her medium is collages or assemblages, and an incredible work of hers is on display. She’s married to an artist and has two daughters, also artists.

The exhibit catalogue bears some of these artists’ stories, among other scholarly information.

The exhibit, presented by the Joe Orgill Family Fund for Exhibitions, is culturally and colorfully rich. It is a must see and admission to the Dixon is free.

Visit https://www.dixon.org/ to learn more.

Fun Facts: An original James Little design lives in the flooring of the basketball court at Tom Lee Park, and he makes and mixes his own paint colors.