Photograph courtesy of Che R. Applewhaite
On the day of a summer 2019 car-wash fundraiser for the R.C. Striders, a junior track team based in St. Louis, almost everyone from the 20-person squad spent more than five hours in the sweltering sun. They’d qualified for the Junior Olympics and needed funds to help get there. Usually, practice at the Normandy High School track was strenuous, not only from the physical exertion but from the ghosts: Mike Brown was once a student there. His killing by police officer Darren Wilson in 2014 ignited more than “400 days of sustained direct action,” as activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham put it the Ferguson Uprising.