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“There’s a lot of conversations that have been had with friends, old and new, comments are made, feelings are expressed that I would never have expected, because those aren’t conversations that you have on a regular basis.”

Mr. Knowles, a Republican and former employee of the police department’s communications office himself, has actually been criticized for that obliviousness, for not having recognized issues such as the tense relations between police and the majority black population.

His almost all-white council in a city where 70% are black is seen by many demonstrators as symbolic of African-American powerlessness in the region.

He insisted that the city, belatedly or not, is now addressing those questions, and said he has come to understand the discontent of some African-Americans in his community.

It’s not just “feelings of systemic racism,” but frustration at the lack of access to higher education, good housing and job opportunities “in the land of opportunity,” said Mr. Knowles.

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“You put all that together and you feel like you’re not part of the system, you feel like you don’t have the same equal opportunities as others,” he said, sounding not unlike some of those protesting against his police force. “And you lump in the Michael Brown shooting and the grand-jury decision, and you don’t have faith in the system.”

Among the steps the city has taken to address that alienation and sense of persecution are requiring police officers to wear video cameras to record interactions, a campaign to recruit more African-American officers — there is just one now — and a scholarship fund to help them pay for required training.