St. Louis is a city where racial lines are more than history — they are alive, built into streets and schools, shaping daily life. But those divisions are not natural. They are the products of racial capitalism, a system designed to profit from inequality while dividing the people most harmed by it.

By Dierdre Lockette

In the summer of 2014, the murder of 18-year-old Mike Brown by a Ferguson police officer ignited protests that shocked the nation. For many, Ferguson became a flashpoint for conversations about police brutality. But if you look beneath the headlines, you’ll see something deeper: a long history of racial capitalism shaping the St. Louis region — and fueling the conditions that led to Ferguson.

A Personal Perspective

I grew up in the St. Louis area, moving twice so my siblings and I could access better schools. I heard stories from my mother and aunts about navigating school integration after Brown v. Board of Education. My own experience was shaped by the brutal reality of segregated education and housing.

Later, at Cardinal Ritter College Prep — a pro-Black Catholic school named after the Cardinal who desegregated the city’s Catholic institutions — I was taught to read history through a critical lens. We learned to see how racial capitalism operates: not just through laws and policies, but through the whitewashing of history itself.

That foundation has guided my work ever since.

Understanding Racial Capitalism

Cedric J. Robinson’s theory of racial capitalism shows us that racism is not an accident of capitalism — it is one of its key engines. Modern capitalism was built upon systems of racial hierarchy, drawing on medieval European practices and adapting them to justify the trans-Atlantic slave trade and ongoing global exploitation.

When we view St. Louis through this lens, patterns that might seem isolated — housing segregation, police violence, school disparities — reveal themselves as pieces of a larger system designed to profit from Black oppression.

The Making of Segregation in St. Louis

In The Making of Ferguson, Richard Rothstein documents the deliberate public policies that enforced segregation in the St. Louis region:

• Racial zoning (1916)
• Restrictive covenants
• White-only suburban subsidies
• “Urban renewal” that displaced Black communities

These were not private acts of bigotry — they were government actions, sanctioned by law and supported by white residents.

Schools: Dividing the Future

Nikole Hannah-Jones connects these housing policies to education, showing how they created the Delmar Divide: a street that became a line between wealthier white areas and underfunded Black communities.

Her reporting revealed that Mike Brown graduated from Normandy School District — a district that lost accreditation just before his death. Efforts to transfer Normandy students to better-resourced districts sparked public outrage from white parents, exposing deep racial fears and divisions.

As Aaron N. Taylor notes, such segregation is not accidental. It was structured through New Deal policies and reinforced through legal and illegal means. Even today, research shows that diversity in schools brings benefits to all students — yet resistance to integration persists.

Ferguson in Global Context

When we place Ferguson in the larger history of racial capitalism, we see clear parallels:

• A permanent Black underclass created through public policy
• Deliberate geographic segregation
• State-sanctioned violence against Black bodies

Robinson’s Black Marxism helps us understand the protests not just as reactions to a single event, but as part of a Black Radical Tradition — a global lineage of resistance to racial capitalism.

Why This Matters — And What We Must Do

Today, St. Louis remains one of the most segregated cities in America. I witnessed this firsthand — moving from St. Louis City to Jennings in the late 1980s, navigating the effects of white flight and educational inequality.

I also saw the power of Black resistance. One of my peers from Cardinal Ritter, Cori Bush, became a prominent voice during the Ferguson protests and is now the first Black woman from Missouri elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Her story — and those of countless others — reminds us that resistance is ongoing.

Moving Forward

Understanding racial capitalism forces us to confront uncomfortable truths:

• Segregation is not an accident — it is engineered.
• Capitalism has always depended on racial division and exploitation.
• Real change requires confronting these root structures, not just surface reforms.

As I continue my studies and research at Washington University, I remain committed to this work. I believe that by connecting the local — Ferguson, St. Louis — to the global history of racial capitalism, we can build stronger movements and clearer demands.

It’s not enough to say Black Lives Matter — we must also fight the economic systems that profit from Black death.

Decolonize. Reclaim. Transform.