This TED Talk features artist and filmmaker Damon Davis, recorded live at TED 2017.

So I'm afraid. Right now, on this stage, I feel fear. In my life, I ain't met many people that will readily admit when they are afraid.

And I think that's because deep down, they know how easy it spreads.

See, fear is like a disease.

When it moves, it moves like wildfire.

But what happens when, even in the face of that fear, you do what you gotta do.

That's called courage.

And just like fear, courage is contagious.

See, I'm from East St. Louis, Illinois.

That's a small city across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri.

I have lived in and around St. Louis my entire life.

When Michael Brown Jr., an unarmed teenager, was gunned down by police in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri,

another suburb but north of St. Louis, I remember thinking, he ain't the first,

and he won't be the last young kid to lose his life to law enforcement.

But see, his death was different.

When Mike was killed, I remember the powers that be trying to use fear as a weapon.

The police response to a community in mourning was to use force to impose fear. Fear militarized police, imprisonment, fines,

the media even tried to make us afraid of each other by the way they spun the story.

And all of these things have worked in the past, but like I said, this time it was different.

Michael Brown's death and a subsequent treatment of the community

led to a string of protests in and around,

Ferguson and St. Louis.

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