Veteran journalist Wesley Lowery will speak at the annual Westminster Town Hall Arc Toward Justice Forum on Thursday, May 23. Before his Minneapolis stop, Wesley also visited St. Louis and Ferguson, Missouri.
In August 2014, Lowery covered the Ferguson protests for the Washington Post. He and another journalist were arrested at a fast food restaurant and charged with trespassing and interfering with a police officer. The charges were later dropped with an agreement that the two reporters would not sue St. Louis County.
Nearly a year later, Lowery led the Post’s “Fatal Force” project, a database that tracked 990 police shootings in 2015 using data compiled by independent grassroots organizations. Before that, the federal government did not compile comprehensive, nationwide data on police killings.
The Post project won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and the U. S Justice Department later announced a pilot program to collect use-of-force statistics in 2017.
Lowery has been on the social justice reform beat for over a decade, beginning as a reporting fellow at the Los Angeles Times and then as a general assignment political reporter at the Boston Globe (2013). He joined the Washington Post in 2014, and that same year, The National Association of Black Journalists named Lowery “Emerging Journalist of the Year.”
Lowery joined CBS News in 2020 after leaving the Post due to unhappiness with the newspaper’s social media policy for journalists. Three years later, Lowery joined the American University School of Communications faculty as an associate professor of investigative journalism and the school’s executive editor for the Investigative Reporting Workshop in 2023.
In visiting Ferguson this week, the small city outside St. Louis with a long history of racial injustice, city officials have tried to institute changes but with mixed results, said Lowery in an MSR phone interview.
“I have to be honest about how remarkable it is to think about how much has shifted and how much has changed in these 10 years [since the Ferguson protests],” he explained. “[Changes have] gone back and forth. Progressive prosecutors have been elected, and [there has been] backlash to these prosecutors. They changed some ordinances and then other ones pop up.
“St. Louis remains one of the deadliest places in the country when it comes to police violence, and it remains a very difficult state politically,” added Lowery. “It’s always very interesting to me to watch and spend time [there] and see how much things have changed but also how intractable some of these problems are.”
One of the nation’s most influential reporters on issues of race and justice, Lowery has also authored several books, including his latest, “American Backlash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress” (2023). It examines America’s backward-changing landscape, seemingly triggered by Barack Obama’s 2008 election as president.
“I’m about 10 years of covering these issues,” said Lowery, who also expressed concern about voter apathy, especially among young Blacks, for this year’s presidential election.
“I think a number of young people” are accepting former president Donald Trump’s behavior “as normal,” stated Lowery. “There is so much apathy about what’s going on in the Middle East right now. I do think we’re seeing extreme levels of apathy when I talk to young people across the country as I’m traveling around.
“I’m very concerned about whether or not the core groups that make up the Democratic coalition are going to turn out [and vote in November], and whether or not the Biden campaign recognizes that [and] recognizes how big of a problem” this might be, said Lowery.
Lowery said he’s looking forward to his Minneapolis visit later this week. “One of the reasons I like traveling and talking is because my job as a writer and a journalist is to listen,” said Lowery. “I really enjoy hearing from different people in different communities.
“As I go place to place, a sense of what questions they’re asking—what issues are bubbling to the surface for them. That’s part of what keeps me sharp and keeps me on it.
“So, I plan to listen as much as I talk as possible,” said Lowery.
Lowery said he’s proud that his work is helping to make a difference: “I’m very proud of the contributions I’ve been able to make alongside amazing colleagues. I know that I’ve been able to do some journalism that I hope has helped frame this conversation and push things forward a little bit.
“That said,” he added, “it’s hard because to cover these issues and cover our community, the ups and downs of it, the back and forth, and you see that there is progress and then it gets ripped back away.
“I see a lot of my colleagues who got into this work, and how many of them have cycled on to something else,” concluded Lowery. “Sometimes I feel that I’m one of the few people still in it day in and day out.”
Wesley Lowery’s May 23 visit at Westminster Presbyterian Church is free to attend or watch via live stream. It is co-sponsored by the Minnesota Humanities Center and the Minnesota Association of Black Lawyers. Doors open at 5 p.m. Westminster Presbyterian Church is located at 1200 Marquette Ave. in Minneapolis. For more info, visit westminsterforum.org/2024/wesley-lowery.