Contested Legitimacy in Ferguson

At noon on August 9, 2014 when Michael Brown was killed on Canfield Drive in Ferguson, there was little protest. But by 9 pm, dozens were nonviolently defying police armed with military style weapons, armored vehicles, helicopters, and snarling dogs. The structural situation alone cannot account for the emergence of insurgency in Ferguson. To explain mobilization, I advance a theory of Contested L...