Not enough affirmative action hires on the police force.
Rep. John Lewis, a leader of the civil rights movement, said Sunday that the Ferguson police force’s low single-digit number of black officers is “shameful” and a “disgrace.”
“It’s a disgrace that in a city that’s 78 percent African American to have only three” African-American police officers on the city’s force, he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“This is shameful,” he added. “… We must teach people the ways of peace and nonviolence, but we cannot have peace and nonviolence without justice.”
The Georgia Democrat marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and was beaten by state troopers in Selma, Ala., after leading a peaceful protest across a bridge. He suffered a skull fracture, and a scar from the incident is still visible.
“The police and the mayor and other local officials have a moral obligation to apologize to the community,” he said.
Quoting King, he added: “We’ve got to learn to live together as brothers and sisters or we’re going to die together as fools.”
Lewis made the comments after nearly a week of violent clashes between protesters and police sparked by a Ferguson police officer’s slaying of unarmed teen Michael Brown.