Wesley Lowery - They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement

T o the families and friends of those who in death have become national figures, Rorschach tests in a divided nations debate of race and justice: thank you for sharing your pain, your mourning, and your humanity with the nation, and for extending patience and love to reporters like me who have shown up at your door at lifes worst moments.

In the acknowledgments of his first book, journalist Chris Hayes described Vanessa Mobley as his intellectual copilot. I heard from Chris almost as soon as I signed with Vanessa, letting me know how lucky I was to have landed the best editor in the game. By then, I already knew.

Her brilliance lies in her ability to reveal to me the things I knew but could never have said, to access the understanding I possess but never could have otherwise voiced. Her diligence and intellect forced me to heights that I could not have fathomed when we began. It has been an honor to copilot this project with her.

This book never would have made it into Vanessas arms had it not been guided there by an amazing team. Thank you to Mollie Glick, for forcing me to sit down and write the original proposal for this book, even when I didnt think I could or wanted to. Anthony Mattero, my literary agent and friend, has pushed me and this project forward. Thank you to my agent, Traci Wilkes Smith, and the entire team at CSE, for believing and building in me.

The heartbeat of this project are the young people whose stories occupy its pages. For two years they have answered my calls, responded to my inquiries, indulged my theories, and helped me understand the depth of this moment. Without their stories, their work, and their candor and willingness to share both with me, there would be no book. To Johnetta Elzie, Alexis Templeton, Kayla Reed, DeRay Mckesson, Brittany Packnett, Clifton Kinnie, Bree Newsome, Kwame Rose, Shaun King, Jonathan Butler, Payton Head, Martese Johnson: telling your stories has been an honor.

And the many whose names and stories may not grace these pages, but whose work has nonetheless driven this movement and whose words and actions have crafted and challenged my understanding of what activism can be: people like Rachelle Smith, Dante Barry, Samuel Sinyangwe, Mervyn Marcano, Michael Skolnik, the folks at the Advancement Project, and the too-often-unsung Chelsea Fuller, my sister, confidante, and North Star.

Contextualizing the events of the last two years would have been impossible without conversations with people far smarter than I am: Chris King, Khalil Muhammad, Phil Goff, Ryan Julison, Chuck Wexler, Neal Peirce for sharing with me notes from his study of St. Louis, and many others.

Ive been blessed with parents who have loved me, and have spent close to three decades sacrificing of themselves to provide for me and my younger brothers. My mother, Sheila, will always be the love of my life, the person I spend the most time trying to make proud. My father, Mark, has forever been my role model of what it means to be a journalist, an advocate for diversity, a Christian, and a man. Above my desk hangs an email he sent me in 2013, during what was for me a moment of frustration: A journalists commitment is to the truth. We have no control over how people choose to handle the truth!

I could not imagine having a more supportive family, both immediate and extended. You all are the rock on which I stand, and have provided the grounding of love, faith, and perseverance in which Im planted.

I could never properly articulate what the love and support of my friends has meant to me during these last two years. This list is far from complete: Clinton Yates, Freeman Thompson, Travis Waldron, Sam McCullough, Aaron Edwards, John Ketchum, Gerrick Kennedy, Eric Burse, Dexter Mullins, Sarah Hoye, Corey Dade, Swati Sharma, Ashley Lutz, John Gruber, Kirsten Gassman, Adrian Walker, Joe Ragazzo, Amanda Lucci, Tom Suddes, Colin Jackson, Teddy Cahill, Mike Young, Chris Call, Cory Haik, Martine Powers, Julian Benbow, Sarah Cavender, Bartees Cox, Juan Diasgranados, and the 2012 LA Times Metpro class.

Danielle: thank you for being my partner in taking over the world. Never stop being you.

Every reporter is a team project, compiled and constructed by the editors, colleagues, and competition he or she encounters along the way.

I owe my love for journalism to Natalie Sekickymy first boss, editor, and debate sparring partner. Ill always thank Marcia Jaffe for teaching a loudmouthed high school boy that, sometimes, it is okay to shut up and listen.

Much of this book leans on reporting and writing Ive done while at the Washington Post. Ill be forever indebted to editors there who believed in and bet on me: Kevin Merida, Tracy Grant, Steven Ginsberg, Terence Samuel, Marcia Davis, Vanessa Williams, Lori Montgomery, David Fallis, Scott Wilson, Cameron Barr, and Marty Baron.

Kimberly Kindy and Kimbriell Kelly are the two older sisters I never knew I wanted but without whom I would be lost. Julie Tate, Jen Jenkins, and Steven Rich: so much of my journalism these last two years would have been impossible without you.

To the journalists whose work makes me better, and whom I am privileged to consider friends: Brittany Noble-Jones, Matt Pearce, Yamiche Alcindor, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Errin Whack (and your husband, and Ginger), Joel Anderson, Adam Serwer, Jamelle Bouie, Darren Sands, Jelani Cobb, Greg Howard, Trymaine Lee, Jamilah Lamieux, Jamil Smith, Vann Newkirk, Clint Smith, Rembert Browne, Ryan Reilly.

This book is dedicated to three men, gone too soon, who helped mold me into who I am today. Ill spend the rest of my life trying to love and be loved by as many people as you were, and are.

T he Movement for Black Livesas activists had begun calling the protest movementand the national push for police reform had faded from the national consciousness during the first months of 2016, in stark contrast to its constant presence in 2014 and for most of 2015. There were bursts of attentionongoing fallout in Chicago following the release in late 2015 of the video of Laquan McDonald being shot and killed, and the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, most significantlybut in each instance Americans focus on race and justice landed like another strong wave, only to recede right back into the wide ocean.

Six months into 2016, I was fact-checking our latest piece. My colleague Kimberly Kindy and I had analyzed the number of Americans killed to date and discovered that even after more than a year of protests and outrage, police nationwide were on pace to take more lives in 2016 than they had in 2015. Yet none of the men and women killed by police in 2016 had received the same level of attention from the media or had galvanized activists as had those killed just months earlier.

The calendar had been predictably dominated by the presidential election, but even there, policing had yet to become a major focus of debate. For racial justice activists, the election was an opportunity to pressure candidates to adopt positions on policing and criminal justice reform, as well as to speak out on other issues of racial disparity. It remained to be seen how successful they would be.

People know that the police are still killing people. What weve got to figure out now is what a victory looks like, Kayla Reed, the Ferguson protester still working for the Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis, told me in early 2016. There isnt going to be a single bill passed that will suddenly encompass all of the ways the system marginalizes black and brown people. We have to redo the whole damn thing.