Jeniece Andrews invested her life savings — and her family’s money —into an upscale boutique in Ferguson called Hidden Treasures. Attached to a Little Caesar’s restaurant, the store sold jewelry, clothing and accessories to a diverse clientele throughout Ferguson.
But late last month, after a grand jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown Jr., arson engulfed the city of Ferguson. Andrew’s store was one of many buildings that burned in a chaotic night of looting and arson. Thanks to a fireproof protective wall, the interior of Little Caesar’s actually held up pretty well — as evidenced by well-preserved soda bottles in a refrigerator.
Andrews wasn’t as lucky. Her store was a total loss.
Like other business owners in Ferguson and Dellwood, Andrews set up a fundraising page online to help her get back in business. But she could potentially benefit from a no-interest loan program organized in part by the St. Louis Regional Chamber.
“We’re talking to all of our partners about the need for significantly more aid to businesses as if this were a tornado or a natural disaster to stabilize the area and get these entrepreneurs the support they need to get back up and running,” said Joe Reagan, the Chamber’s president and CEO.
The St. Louis Business Council’s Reinvest North County Fund is awarding $119,500 to support businesses and school districts. And some key players within the St. Louis business community promised relief to riot-stricken businesses as well as millions of dollars to help bolster the region’s poorest communities.
But can those efforts make a difference? At least two professors with experience in community building efforts noted that a high-profile effort to rebuild Los Angeles after the riots in the early 1990s there fell flat. They worry that big companies are more focused on philanthropy than with empowering communities.
“To get involved in community organizing is to literally give up some control,” said Todd Swanstrom, a political science professor at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. “Because obviously what you’re saying is the agenda will be set by the community — not by the corporation.”
Some of the region’s largest companies have made big commitments since Michael Brown Jr. was shot and killed in early August. Some have pledged money to non-profit groups, while others promised to expand their footprint within north St. Louis County.
Some of the commitments include:
Centene said it will build a facility in Ferguson. The company also pledged to hire people from within the city.
Monsanto pledged $1 million to several non-profit groups, including the United Way of Greater St. Louis, the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis and Legal Services of Eastern Missouri.
Ferguson-based Emerson donated millions of dollars to numerous organizations. The company will fund scholarships and employment efforts throughout north St. Louis County.
“Emerson has tried to take a leadership position, primarily because our headquarters are in Ferguson and have been for almost 75 years,” said Patrick Sly, an executive vice president with Emerson. “And we have been somewhat successful in getting the rest of the business community involved.”
“It’s really important that we focus on how this is going to give youth jobs and a chance to learn, develop and be successful,” said Centene CEO Michael Neidorff.
Rich McClure — the former chairman of Unigroup and one of two chairmen of the Ferguson Commission — said the “business community is very interested and must be committed to see this as a broad, wide-ranging set of challenges and issues and to engage in addressing those issues.”
But Peter Drier heard similar promises after his city experienced unrest and destruction in the early 1990s, following the acquittal of several police officers who were videotaped beating Rodney King. Dreier is a professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles. He recalls the business community there setting up an organization called “Rebuild L.A.” as a response of sorts to rioting that destroyed parts of the city.
“The idea was to get the business community to invest in the neighborhoods that had been the epicenter of the riots,” Dreier said. “And that meant grocery stores and retail outlets and a couple of shopping malls that never quite got off the ground.”
When the unwieldy group’s promises didn’t materialize, Dreier said it was up to other groups to step up. He said labor unions, activist groups and environmentalists became forces for change within the city.
“There’s been a lot more efforts to raise wages for the low-wage workers, to clean up the environment, to provide more affordable housing,” Dreier said. “And that has come from the bottom up, not from the top down. And it’s made the business community more responsible, although some have done it kicking and screaming.”
“In case of the events of Ferguson, I think the corporate community in St. Louis needs to think more broadly about what generated these issues in the first place,” UMSL professor Swanstrom said. “We need more forward-thinking projects that address the problems of rising concentrated poverty, weak institutions, fiscal stress and political empowerment.”
Added Dreier: “What Ferguson and the other cities around St. Louis that have similar problems of poverty and racial segregation need is not more charity. They need more justice. They need more jobs.
Emerson’s Sly said that his company plans to give beyond its initial investment — which he said now exceeded $6 million.
“One of the ideas that we have is a business incubator where we can use our training center on campus and our expertise to go out and help businesses,” Sly said. “Not only help them repair the damage that’s been done, but also help them get restarted and give them the professional advice they need to be successful.”
“We believed that there is a shared reality that we have not formed here in St. Louis,” Reagan said. “We have to be able to get on the same page and say ‘This is what the situation is around jobs, around socioeconomic gaps, around education gaps, around despair that people have and around policing.’”
St. Louis Public Radio’s Maria Altman contributed to this story.
Edited for length and reprinted with permission from news.stlpublicradio.org.
