Austin McCoy is an assistant professor of history at Auburn University. His work has appeared in journals such as Social History and New Labor Forum and academic blogs such as Nursing Clio and Black Perspectives. Austin is currently working on a book analyzing campaigns for participatory democracy in economics, criminal justice, and foreign policy in the post-industrial Midwest.
The civil disturbances of 1968 signaled a nation that threatened to tear itself asunder but, significantly, Ferguson became a harbinger for a movement against state violence and a conversation about policing because it had become more militarized, not only because it could be brutal or highly insensitive in dealing with African Americans.