Photography by Thomas Crone
Last night, the Rebirth Brass Band, on tour from New Orleans, was holding it down at The Gramophone. That city’s music is deeply-rooted in African-American traditions, but the audience at this type of concert here is reliably white, mostly between ages 30 and 50, with somewhat-mellow-but-appreciative gatherings the rule. The show was going along as planned, a fun experience, not-exactly-raucous. To just enjoy the show and not be reminded of the real world, I left my phone in the car.
That worked until my roommate’s phone started blowing up with texts, bursts of information pouring in about protesters moving up and down South Grand. With our home and my new business each a long block away from Grand, we headed back. (The drive was marked by an unusual moment: We were yelled at by a bullhorn coming from an SUV bearing the license plates of State Senator Jamilah Nasheed, who didn’t like the way we passed. Weird.)
When leaving the Gramophone, I was short-circuited from one of those glorious daydreams. For about 15 minutes, the Rebirth Brass Band was comforting me, taking me away, a calming effect coming from music that wasn’t all that calm. It was a nice 15-minutes. And then we left.
BACK HOME
I don’t need to go into great detail about the police shooting of Mike Brown in August. Or about the police shooting of Vonderrit Myers Jr. a couple of nights ago. The stories have been told and retold, from a variety of perspectives, and in every form of media. The narratives of those events, though, continues to be reshaped, repurposed.
Coming back to the South Grand area last night held the same tension that it had on Wednesday, the night of the shooting, but with a different, edgier vibe. Parking a few blocks away, I checked on the business, found it in good hands, then headed up to the intersection of Arsenal and Grand. The streets were buzzing. There were people out, from all across the spectrum, walking to the omnipresent whirr of a police helicopter.
Arsenal was closed at Arkansas. At the end of the block, a wall of riot-geared police were standing in a line, covering the width of the street. Protesters mostly stood around, as did those who, like me, could be called tourists, observers, witnesses. (I’ve lived in the neighborhood on and off since 1969, but still felt very much like a tourist at a corner I’ve been on a thousand times. Weird.) A few protesters shouted at the cops from a distance of no more than six feet. One played an amplified phone conversation that she was having with her mother, the two of them essentially shaming the police for taking lives.
I drifted to Hartford and Grand, where the street was clear. A few dozen protesters were milling, occasionally pushing closer to the cops en masse, some of them yelling, many of them not. Quite a few people hung back, yards away from the two lines of people facing each other, the cops and the crowd. In this group, I saw a few familiar faces, one of whom said that he’d been pepper-sprayed earlier, for not moving onto a sidewalk quickly enough, as best as I could understand the story.
Thursday was my second night observing marches on Grand. Both nights featured their own moments of stark, unpredictable drama. On Wednesday, I’ll take away this image: A man to my left began pointing at two men walking ahead of us, shouting “Darren Wilson supporter!” He was black, and they were white. “The guy in the green army coat, he said ‘Darren Wilson,’” the man yelled again, now that others were paying attention. Several other men began pursuing those two. Words were exchanged on the corner of Humphrey and Grand, and at just the second it looked as if something might escalate, the Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou spun through the crowd and got between the groups. To those ready to engage, he kept repeating, “Don’t let the media make this the story.” About as quickly as it began, the confrontation dissipated, though I wondered what I’d have done had the situation gotten physical.
Last night, a stranger moment occurred. After the protest march cut through the parking lot of Schnucks, a fight broke out to my left. Two young women were tussling, then a few more, then the fight spun out into the street. With the marches already stalling traffic, the initial pair got lost in a larger melee, maybe 25 to 30 people pulling, pushing, shoving, or yanking at people to stop the skirmish. It de-escalated as one group pinwheeled down Potomac past, oddly enough, a policeman who’d shut down that corner. Again, a flash of activity.
The protest would go on from there, including a 20-minute stop in the big intersection of Grand and Gravois, where traffic wasn’t all that thick. Throughout, a large SUV drove alongside, full of monitors, with cameras trained on the crowd, but this wasn’t a cop car. It was a protest vehicle, with men hanging off or sitting on windows. I looked around more and noticed two former students of mine, a few people that I’ve seen around town for years, a Green candidate for various political offices, and a whole lot of folks I’d never seen before. Some were undoubtedly locals who’ve been energized by the events of recent weeks. Others have certainly traveled here for the action.
Here’s the strangest thing: Walking from Grand and Gravois to Grand and Magnolia felt safe, as safe I’ve ever felt, on a stretch that can sometimes be a funky scene. There were people. Everywhere! St. Louis’ often-pedestrian-emptied streets were alive. I wouldn’t say that it was a good energy filling the air, but there was energy. All those people outside and participating in a very unusual evening, played out in the streets, in a town that often shuts down with the sun. Weird.
TAKEAWAYS, AS IF
Reading Facebook today, I’m struck by the fact that folks are digging in, sides are being picked. Words like “thugs” are being casually bandied about. Friends are falling in very different social directions than I would typically call my own. I’m jealous of those who feel they have the answer, as I’m finding a grayer, more confusing world by the day.
Were there troublemakers in the crowd? Unquestionably. As a progressive, I’m not sure of the exact right way to respond. Hearing people chant “f—k the police” is to listen to lines of protest theater. Hearing people (and not just a few) shout that cops should be shot or that the city should burn? I’m not down with that and can’t accompany such a march again—not in good conscience, not in silence, and not in safety.
These observations are mine and mine only. Others are having very different experiences on the frontlines of this moment. They could point to bicyclists tearing down the block, keeping cars from running lights and into intersections full of people. They might see priests holding hands with protesters. Or other small acts of humanity and kindness. Believe me, I looked for those, but my own sense of tension was possibly running too high. I couldn’t escape the fact that the 25-year-old me would’ve seen this South Grand in a very different light than the 45-year-old version.
While not sleeping last night, I thought about this: I didn’t see anyone throw a peace sign in the air, either night, at any moment. I saw other fingers raised, but not those. I should have taken the lead and done it myself, really, been a participant in a small way.
Sometimes, you gotta act. Sometimes, though, you just want to be at a Rebirth Brass Band show at The Gramophone, all the way through the encore, able to emotionally let that world be “real world” enough.
