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Short Synopsis
At a time of renewed activism, the story of the young people who bravely turned a local issue into a national movement for justice, from a professor of Black studies at Amherst who participated in the Ferguson uprising.

Full Synopsis
Stefan M. Bradley was a young professor in Saint Louis University when Black teenager Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri, by a local white police officer. Bradley quickly became a key media activist during the protests that ensued, giving on-the-ground interviews to Chris Hayes, CNN, Al Jazeera, the BBC, and others.

In If We Don't Get It, Bradley, now a named professor of Black studies at Amherst College, shows how Brown's murder sparked a grassroots movement for democracy, led by Black youth, which transformed the way we talk about race, justice, and policing in the United States.

Through the authentic voices of the movement's participants, Bradley describes the motivation and tensions coursing through the uprising's early days and weeks, the problems of media representation (and misrepresentation), intergenerational conflict over protest tactics, clashes with the police and politicians, and much more.

A rich story with deep relevance for the protests of our own time, If We Don't Get It offers a gripping account of how young activists, without previous political experience, succeeded in changing our national political narrative.

If We Don't Get It

A People's History of Ferguson

Author Stefan M. Bradley

Narrated by Mirron Willis

Publication date Jul 22, 2025

Running time 11 hrs

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