Michael Brown’s death transformed a nation and sparked a decade of American reckoning on race

Associated Press

Michael Brown has been dead for a decade. The Black teenager’s death in Ferguson, Missouri, prompted an eruption of protests in the suburban city and gave a boost to a then-nascent Black Lives Matter movement. It wasn’t just BLM, though, It was also Indigenous people defending water and land, Latino people opposing draconian immigration detention and deportation practices that ripped apart families, and Asian American activists pushing back on xenophobia. These movements have changed America democracy and culture and inspired multiracial activism. But a decade later, the wins, losses and potential future of racial justice in the U.S. are still in question.