It's funny, I once had an idea about publishing a photo only coffee table style book on race relations. Having grown up and lived in the Ferguson area, it always made my soul feel good to see so many black and white people, both adults and children, spending time with each other and playing together. Then I realized it would be really creepy to be taking pictures of strangers, kids in particular. It's amazing to me how places like Ferguson get labeled as a ghetto. A better term would be integrated. What do I know though, I've only lived there the vast majority of my life.
Saul Alinsky once famously defined integration as ``that brief period between the time the first black family moves in and the last white family moves out.''
His point was that what appeared to be integration was not true integration, but instead was a town merely transitioning from white to black. Here is Ferguson's census data:
In 1970, Ferguson was 99% white and 1% black
In 1980, Ferguson was 85% white and 14% black
In 1990, Ferguson was 73.8% white and 25.1% black
In 2000, Ferguson was 44.8% white and 52.4% black
In 2010 Ferguson was 29.3% white and 67.4% black
[
Chart: Inside Ferguson's Changing Demographics, Forbes, 8-19-2014]
The census data shows a fairly rapid rate of transition from a white town to what will be a nearly all black town in the not too distant future. Suffice to say, the events of this past year will likely increase the rate of white flight.
Given the era in which you've lived nearly all your memories of Ferguson are of that "brief period" of integration which Alinsky described, but when you pull back further the census numbers support Alinsky's idea of transition rather than true integration.