When Gov. Jay Nixon announced the newly formed Office of Community Engagement and named its director, former state Senator Maida Coleman, in the same news cycle that black St. Louis County Democrats announced a new dissident Democratic club, it looked like the two could be somehow connected.
Maida had defected from the (white) Democrats once before, when she ran as an Independent for mayor of St. Louis against a Democratic incumbent. By responding to the Ferguson crisis and simultaneously empowering a former dissident Democrat, the Democratic governor seemed to be performing a complex and almost prophetic form of stagecraft, addressing both a crisis in the community and within his party.
What it is, it ain’t.
“Marvin and I thought the announcement would be two weeks ago, then a week and a half ago,” Coleman said of her and the office’s deputy director and chief counsel, Marvin Teer. “When I read the story about the Fannie Lou Hamer caucus, I was glad to see it and called Hazel (Erby), but it just happened that it came out that same day.”
The Fannie Lou Hamer thing was a coincidence, but the Ferguson protest movement was not.
“This office was created as a result of some of the issues that come forth because of Ferguson,” Coleman said. But the office’s mandate is statewide, not regional. She said, “We’re going to start in St. Louis and move across the state and deal with these issues wherever they are.”
The issues being raised by Ferguson protestors are not new to this mother of two black St. Louis sons who move in the same circles as Tef Poe, the activist, rapper and writer visible in Ferguson.
“I used to get an earful about this all the time,” she said. “Tef is a friend of theirs. I’ve been hearing from them what people are saying and thinking.”
As a former state senator, she is connected to state Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal, who is very prominent in Ferguson, and state Senator Jamilah Nasheed, who also has been active.
“I’m going to work with Maria, I’m going to work with Nasheed,” Coleman said. “I’ve had a couple of meetings with young folks who have been out there in the streets. I’m not turning anybody away. I intend to be where I need to be, find the people I need to hear from and meet those young people where they are. It’s going to take hard work, and nobody has all the answers.”
One question that Ferguson raises, as a youth uprising, is whether youth will listen to answers coming from someone as old as their mom or grandma.
“I understand their hesitation listening to older people,” Coleman said. “They believe in immediacy. They’re used to instant gratification. In the past, in the civil rights era, it took time. But back then, plenty of people were saying, ‘This is taking too long.’ It’s the same kind of situation, but a different era, different ages.”
Ferguson is also a mother’s movement, and Coleman can lead there.
“As a mother, I can relate to the grief and the horror of the incident,” she said of the Ferguson Police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teen. “That’s why I am even more determined to come up with some solutions to assist my community.”
As a mother of black sons, she has been there.
“I’ve had those difficult conversations with my sons,” she said – “how to behave, how to act when you’re out in public and especially when they’re in the presence of the police. I understand that many people don’t realize that this is a real problem, not only in this state but in this country, because so many people don’t see it and don’t experience it. But that doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
Coleman said she is also going to do outreach to communities that don’t get it.
“I think we have to reach those folks too,” she said, “because everybody is going to be needed to help make this situation better.”
What’s it going to cost us, the people?
“The office was awarded $400,000 to get started with,” Coleman said. “Eventually we’ll have to go to the Legislature to ask for funds to continue.”
Though the emergence of the Fannie Lou Hamer club was a coincidence, Coleman said her experience running as an Independent is an asset.
“With my Independent bid, I think that experience shows this governor and my constituency that I am not afraid to stand up for what is right,” she said. “It made me a good pick for this job.”
Of course, her Independent bid was against a Democrat, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, who has not always been close to the governor who appointed Coleman. And she avoided that Democratic primary to run against Slay as an Independent in the general election because another black woman with the last name “Coleman” filed as a Democrat on the last day of filing for the primary.
“When I ran as an Independent, I don’t know the best way to phrase this, but I knew I was a better choice to lead the city of St. Louis at that time,” Coleman said, “and I wasn’t going to be deterred by obstacles put in place to distract me and to distract voters.”
