There's this video I keep watching of the protests in Ferguson, Missouri a few years back.

It's August, a few days after Michael Brown was shot and killed by police and then left in the middle of the street for hours.

If you are on the quick, your blood, you are unlawfully assembled, and you will be subject to arrest.

Please.

In this video, police are letting off smoke bombs, firing tear gas.

And then the camera settles on a guy who's leaning against a telephone pole,

wearing a suit jacket, just watching.

The man says, this is where our homes are located, where our children are in their beds.

And this drama is truly affecting them for the rest of their lives.

The reporter asks,

are you hopeful anything good will come of this?

The man takes a deep breath.

But then he says yes.

The reporter who did this interview, her name is Alicia Sperry.

And I'm a reporter at The Intercept.

Great. And you were advice before that?

I was at Vice for a couple years, yeah.

I was struck by this video she shot because it shows how even when things on the ground looked really bleak, there were people who had hope, people who were

thinking about what would happen next.

I remember a week, maybe a week, maybe, well, a few days after Mike Brown was killed,

there were people doing voter registration drives on Canfield Drive, which is the street where he

was killed.

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