Ferguson, Missouri elects two black city
councillors
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[April 08, 2015]
By Carey Gillam and Eric M. Johnson
(Reuters) - Residents elected a black man
and a black woman to Ferguson's city council on Tuesday in the Missouri
city's first municipal election since a white police officer fatally
shot an unarmed black teen, triggering months of sometimes violent
protests.
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Like the police force in Ferguson, two-thirds of whose residents
are black, the city's leadership has long been dominated by whites.
Ferguson has about 21,000 residents but has had only two black
councillors since its incorporation in 1894, including incumbent
Dwayne James.
Eight candidates, including four African-Americans, were up for
three seats in an election seen as critical to addressing the
racially discriminatory practices that threw Ferguson into the
spotlight when Michael Brown, 18, was shot dead in August.
The shooting spurred a national debate over police treatment of
minorities, an issue given extra impetus when a white South Carolina
officer was charged with murder on Tuesday after video showed him
shooting at the back of a 50-year-old black man.
Voter turnout almost doubled to about 30 percent, the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch reported, despite a heavy thunderstorm.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Apr/08/images/ads/current/american_legion_sda_2014.png) The new black councillors are Ella Jones and Wesley Bell, a
professor and judge who ran against another African-American in the
ward where Brown lived, unofficial results showed. White former
Ferguson mayor Brian Fletcher also won a seat.
"I hope this means we'll have a more engaged and willing-to-listen
council," a resident of the St. Louis suburb and State
Representative Courtney Curtis said, noting however that two
candidates championed by activists had lost.
"This will be the most minority representation ever on the council.
What they do remains to be seen, but I am hopeful."
The council will select a new city manager, who in turn will hire
and supervise the police chief and all other city employees, with
the exception of the city clerk.
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Both the previous police chief and city manager resigned, as did
Ferguson's municipal judge, after the U.S. Justice Department said
in March that it found widespread discriminatory practices in the
police department and the municipal court.
A county grand jury declined to indict Wilson for Brown's death and
the U.S. Justice Department also declined to pursue charges against
the officer, who resigned from the department.
Ferguson Mayor James Knowles, considered a seventh member of the
council, said reforms are already under way and do not depend upon
new council members.
"People in general want to see change," Knowles told Reuters by
phone. "I don't think any candidate who is running for office or
anyone on the current city council has said they want to keep things
the way they are."
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