If We Don’t Get It

A People’s History of Ferguson

Stefan M. Bradley

• Publisher: The New Press
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN:
  9781620979402
• Subtopic: Civics & Citizenship

At a time of renewed activism, the story of the young people who bravely turned a local issue into a national movement for justice, from a professor of Black studies at Amherst who participated in the Ferguson uprising

Stefan M. Bradley was a young professor in Saint Louis University when Black teenager Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri, by a local white police officer. Bradley quickly became a key media activist during the protests that ensued, giving on-the-ground interviews to Chris Hayes, CNN, Al Jazeera, the BBC, and others.

In If We Don’t Get It, Bradley, now a named professor of Black studies at Amherst College, shows how Brown’s murder sparked a grassroots movement for democracy, led by Black youth, which transformed the way we talk about race, justice, and policing in the United States.

Bradley conducted over two dozen oral history interviews with young Black protesters. Through the authentic voices of the movement’s participants, Bradley describes the motivation and tensions coursing through the uprising’s early days and weeks, the problems of media representation (and misrepresentation), intergenerational conflict over protest tactics, clashes with the police and politicians, and much more. If We Don’t Get It also explores the new generation of elected officials, including Congresswoman Cori Bush, who emerged from the local movement’s ranks.

A rich story with deep relevance for the protests of our own time, If We Don’t Get It offers a gripping account of how young activists, without previous political experience, succeeded in changing our national political narrative.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Jonathan Pulphus
• Author’s Note
• Introduction
• 1. Red’s Ribz and Racial Capitalism in Ferguson
• 2. Today Was a Good Day: Michael Brown Encounters Darren Wilson
• 3. Who Let the Dogs Out?: Repressive Police Action
• 4. Democracy Is in the Streets: Mothers, Thugs, and the Dispossessed
• 5. Moment or a Movement?: Youth Organizing for Freedom
• 6. Bring Toilet Paper: Police Repression and Young Professionals
• 7. Thug Life: Representation of Black Youth in Local and National Media
• 8. Whose Movement and Whose Streets?
• 9. Leadership and Money in Movement Making
• 10. Fun in the Frenzy: Comedy in the Chaos
• 11. Soldiers and Scholars: Ferguson Comes to SLU
• 12. Mizzou and Princeton Too
• 13. Hope Burned: No Indictment and Destructive Rebellion
• 14. Life Goes On: Where Are They Now?
• Conclusion: America, You’re Welcome
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author
• Publishing in the Public Interest
• Copyright