When Mike Brown died in August 2014 I watched my city erupt in ways I have never experienced before. The emotion we displayed during that time was raw and warranted. I was attending Florissant Valley Community College at the time and I lived with my father. When I saw what was happening I immediately had this urge grab my camera and go capture it for myself. I knew then that that moment in history was life changing and since then honestly things have not been the same. That year it felt like although my eyes were open from personal experience I was completely thrown into reality after the death of Mike Brown. I saw my faith in having better days where my skin didn’t cause me problems completely fade away.
I finally threw myself into the protest photography of fall 2016 when Donald Trump was just elected president of the United States and the world was in chaos once again. I got a very similar feeling, close to the one I got watching my city deal with the death of Mike Brown. So this time I grabbed my camera and hit the streets and from then until the end of 2017 I immersed myself in this environment completely. The shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith had went to trial and the verdict came in as not guilty of first degree murder in September of 2017. The city took to the streets again and what I missed in Ferguson I was soon to experience during this time. I followed the protest consistently and made sure I captured as much as I could. At this time the media was portraying protesters as criminals when that wasn’t the truth. I made it a point to capture these moments because they told the truth of what was really happening here in St. Louis.
I captured how police officers did drive by’s with chemical weapons, shooting rubber bullets at not only protesters but media, medics, and even civilians as well. Pulling civilians from their apartments and vehicles despite their pleas that they weren’t involved. Even captured an unmarked car speeding in reverse through a crowd of protesters (thankfully injuring no one) with no remorse for what he had done. I sat and listened as cops talked about us as if we were the shit on the bottom of their shoe. I watched as they strategized and screamed for you to leave but gave you no possible exit to do so. Sitting in cells with 30 plus women and listening to the cries of a white civilian woman as she asks “how can they do this to us?” because this was something she had never in her life experienced. I watched as people were denied medical attention by law enforcement and taunted as if they were animals in a cage. These are the things I witnessed and experienced personally that the media didn’t cover or twisted it to fit their narrative.
I took a break after the Stockley verdict when it came to my photojournalism and protesting and for about the next year I focused on crime scenes, community events, and major events here in St. Louis. I photographed things like Pride, community rallies for violence in the city, the Clair McCaskill watch party on election night, even caught voters at the polls earlier that same day. I explored different environments to help me grow as a photojournalist so that I could understand how to photograph more than just protests. Eventually I fell back into that world when Brett Kavanaugh was accused of raping Christine Ford. The emotions in these moments is what initially drew me to photographing protests. They were raw and strong and to capture them for the next generation was an honor. As I spent more and more time in this protesting world it showed me the corruption within in the system and the mainstream media. That fueled my desire to capture the truth of these moments for the next generation to come. Since May of 2016 I have followed protests here in St. Louis as well as other cities around the country. I was pulled in once again in 2020 during the uprising of George Floyd. That was one wild summer and the things I endured during that time made step away for a while once again. I always find my way back somehow though and can't deny that I love capturing such raw moments. I plan to continue my photojournalism and activism as this is something I’ve grown very passionate about.
