Since the protests and rioting that wracked it in 2014, Ferguson, Missouri has become not one, but three things: a place, a symbol, and a machine.
The place is an ordinary suburb of St. Louis, with ranch and bungalow homes along tree-lined streets. The symbol still looms over America’s conversations about race and power. The machine is the activists, academics, and public officials who have spent a decade using the symbol to amass power and money.
