Ferguson’s Former Mayor Wants to Try Again

There are none of Brian Fletcher’s orange campaign signs displayed in the window of the “I Love Ferguson” shop on South Florissant. Lawn signs or placards would be redundant. The entire place is an ad for Fletcher’s candidacy for City Council. When you walk in, you see awards for Fletcher to the right of the door. More or less, you’re in his house now. A large wooden table, where you might expect to be served a refreshment and some home-cooked food, sits nearby. The rest of it is loud colors, metal racks, and red hearts. The merchandised love for Ferguson is everywhere.

Against a wall there’s a map of the world, with swarms of pushpins indicating where “I Love Ferguson” paraphernalia has been shipped. Below the map is a stack of the “I Love Ferguson” signs you can find on lawns throughout North St. Louis County. The signs supplied the feel-good story the national media grasped for after Officer Darren Wilson killed unarmed teen Michael Brown last August 9. If you ask a number of Ferguson residents still smarting from the police violence that accompanied the protests, the signs symbolize a desire to maintain the status quo. The signs say: “Hey, America, no worries: Everything’s fine!”

I recently sat down with Fletcher, who served as Ferguson’s mayor between 2005 and 2011, inside the store. On a sweater day, he was wearing a short-sleeve polo shirt stretched by his midsection. At 55, he is bald with grey hair in the back, and smiles through clenched teeth. Over the course of our conversation, which has been edited for length, it became clear that Fletcher wants very badly to get back into Ferguson’s city government.