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ST. LOUIS — The Rev. Darryl Gray has a picture on his phone of the first time he met Cori Bush.

It was March 7, 2015, at the ceremony on the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the of “Bloody Sunday,� the police crackdown on protesters in Selma, Alabama.

President Barack Obama was the keynote speaker. Bush was there to make sure the president was also focused on Ferguson. She was a young protester and organizer who came into prominence after Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer on Aug. 9, 2014.

As Obama was speaking, a group of Ferguson protesters pounded drums and chanted, “We Want Change.� Gray worked at the , the Atlanta-based civil rights organization once led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He was at the Selma event with civil rights icon Bernard Lafayette Jr., who had been on the bridge in Selma 50 years earlier.

Lafayette heard the drums and walked with Gray toward the protesters. They argued a bit, and the drummers decided to stand down for the remainder of Obama’s speech. The picture on Gray’s phone is of the Montgomery Advertiser newspaper story of that moment. Bush is front-and-center in the photo.

Gray and Bush would strike up a friendship. ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ worked together to establish an SCLC chapter in St. Louis. Gray moved here to run Bush’s first campaign for office. She lost that one — a run for U.S. Senate — but she’s been a member of Congress, representing Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, since 2021.

Bush upset incumbent Lacy Clay Jr., in a historic victory in August 2020. She turned from protester to politician, though she stayed true to her roots, using the tools learned in Ferguson in her new role.

Gray refers to Bush as one of his “political children.� Last week, he gave Bush some unexpected tough love that has riled up the Ferguson movement.

On Friday morning, Gray hosted a group of about 40 clergy members — most of them Black — to listen to St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, who is challenging Bush for her congressional seat in the Democratic primary on Tuesday.

Gray had switched sides. Ten years after Ferguson, conflicts between older civil rights leaders and younger members of the organic movement that grew from the streets of St. Louis are creating tension again.

“Cori has been like a political daughter to me,� Gray says. “But I believe Wesley has proven that he can build bridges. He’s not necessarily looking for the national spotlight. I think maybe Cori got caught up in that.�

As a member of the progressive “Squad� in Congress, Bush has developed a national profile. She’s had her successes, such as when she camped on the steps of the Capitol for four days in 2021, earning from President Joe Biden an extension of the eviction moratorium. Her enthusiastic embrace of pro-Palestinian protests, on the other hand, has earned the ire of some of her Jewish constituents and helped draw the challenge from Bell, who is getting much of his funding from the pro-Israel political action committee AIPAC.

The third candidate in the Democratic primary, former state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, has been critical of both Bell and Bush, directing her most pointed barbs toward Bell.

To some extent, both Bell and Bush owe their political careers to the Ferguson movement, though their roads to campaign success were built on different backgrounds. Bell was a municipal judge who was seen as part of the problem identified by Ferguson protesters: a system of municipal courts that used policing as a fundraising tool, often leading to debtors’ prisons for poor, Black defendants who couldn’t afford fines and fees and ended up in jail.

But when he ran against the longtime county prosecutor, Bob McCulloch, who was demonized by protesters because he wouldn’t charge former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in Brown’s death, Bell was seen as a means to an end. He was elected with the help of many of the same Ferguson protesters who back Bush, though their support of him has soured over time.

Michael Brown’s father, Mike Brown, Sr., for instance, just appeared in , saying Bell broke his promise of seeking justice for Michael. A group of social justice organizations also recently accused Bell of failing to follow through on promises to reform his office.

Amid those fissures in Bell’s progressive support, Gray’s public switch in allegiances may be a boon for the candidate. But it is seen as a betrayal by some in the Ferguson movement.

“With Reverend Gray coming from the movement and advocating for so many things that Cori advocates for, I’m not sure what has changed,� says St. Louis Alderman Rasheen Aldridge, a Ferguson protest leader who also found political success.

Aldridge is still firmly in Bush’s camp. “I’m really at a loss of words,� he says of his friend Gray’s switch to Bell. “I’m disappointed.�

Is there room in the civil rights movement for both Gray and Aldridge, for both Bell and Bush, for old-school activism and new-school protests? That’s the connection Obama was trying to make nine years ago.

Ferguson, Obama said in that speech, is proof that the work of Selma activists is not completed. It would be a mistake, he said, to assume that racism was banished in America because of the progress that had been made.

“We don’t need the Ferguson report to know that’s not true,� Obama said. “We just need to open our eyes, and our ears and our hearts to know that this nation’s racial history still casts its long shadow upon us.�

Ten years after Ferguson, and 59 years after “Bloody Sunday,� voters in St. Louis will decide who they want in Congress helping guide the nation along an arc of history that hopefully bends toward justice.

Cori Bush pounds the drums of change.

Wesley Bell builds a bridge to compromise.

The political children of Ferguson stand at a crossroads.