FERGUSON, Mo. — Darren Seals experienced waves of disbelief and anger after Michael Brown’s death, but two months later, he has found a way to channel his emotions: Focus on changing an elected leadership that seems deaf to the concerns of African American residents like him.
So on Nov. 4, the 27-year-old assembly-line worker and hip-hop musician from a deeply Democratic community plans to take bold action. He says he will vote for a white Republican. “Just because they’ve got the D next to their name, that don’t mean nothing,” said Seals, who lives a few blocks from where a police officer shot Brown. “The world is watching us right now. It’s time to send a message of our power.”
Many African Americans in Ferguson and across St. Louis County, angered over their leaders’ response to the fatal shooting, say they will be taking their outrage to the ballot box and voting against a Democratic Party that has long been their automatic choice. They are focusing on the St. Louis county executive’s race, which typically centers on matters such as the budget and sanitation but this year has become caught up in the unrest.
Earlier this month, a coalition of some 20 African American Democratic leaders called a news conference to endorse the GOP candidate, state Rep. Rick Stream. Armed with voter registration forms, activists like Seals have been roaming black neighborhoods urging people to vote for anyone but the Democrat.
The plan is not only to beat back a local candidate they view as particularly unfriendly to black residents, but also to present a show of force to Democratic leaders all the way up to Sen. Claire McCaskill and Gov. Jay Nixon. By switching their allegiance in this election, these African Americans hope to demonstrate that their votes should not be taken for granted.
Ted Hoskins, the mayor of nearby Berkeley who has endorsed Stream, rattled off a series of slights and sins. They range from the governor’s decision to back the controversial prosecutor in the Brown case to the Democratic Party’s anemic support for the incumbent county executive, a black Democrat who was ousted by a white challenger during the August primary.
“This is about the total disrespect white Democrats have demonstrated against the black community,” he said. “This time, we are going to show them.”
It could be a difficult feat. A Republican has not held the St. Louis county executive’s position in 25 years. Black residents make up about a quarter of the county’s population. But they typically account for only 10 to 15 percent of the vote, according to Terry Jones, a political science professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis.
Anger is running high among some African Americans toward the Democratic candidate for county executive, County Councilman Steve Stenger, who is white. Stenger mounted an aggressive primary challenge in defeating Charlie Dooley, one of the state’s top-ranking black politicians and the first African American to become St. Louis county executive.
Even worse in the eyes of some African Americans are Stenger’s political ties to Robert P. McCulloch, the Democratic county prosecutor handling the Michael Brown case. McCulloch, whose father was a police officer killed in the line of duty by a black man, earned the ire of local black residents over his handling of a previous police shooting and a perception that he is particularly hard on black suspects.
They have asked for McCulloch to be removed from the Brown case, but he has declined to recuse himself. McCaskill and Nixon, among other officials, have backed McCulloch’s decision to stay on the case.
McCulloch did not respond to requests for comment. In a previous interview with The Washington Post, McCulloch contested the notion that he cannot be fair in the Brown case.
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