Robbie Ward

rward2@greenvillenews.com

A Clemson University researcher's grassroots and smartphone activism in Ferguson, Missouri, turned him into a case study of the high-stakes perils and payoffs in the modern era of protest.

His real-time broadcasts from his smartphone exposed confrontations and other moments to thousands of viewers throughout the country and beyond.

He also learned how it feels to be on the receiving end of an angry online mob, some of whom turned his comments to a reporter into digital ammunition by firing off disapproving tweets and emails to him and his employer.

Chenjerai Kumanyika, who researches communication for social justice and perspectives in popular culture, seems to embody the modern protestor. He embraces technology and social media and at the same time demonstrates and marches with hundreds for causes he supports.

Using his personal resources over Thanksgiving break, he traveled with his wife to Ferguson, where demonstrations over the death of Michael Brown — a black teenager shot and killed by a white police officer — were reaching their apex.

"My own participation was drawn into a number of narratives simultaneously by the media, by right-wing groups and different people," he said. "I learned some things that are not covered in mainstream media in the context of protest."

Until recent years, most protesters needed to call news organizations to ensure they communicated messages to the public. The required technical expertise and expensive, bulky equipment prohibited most people, no matter their views, from producing broadcast-quality video footage.

But with smartphones and access to the internet and social media, that's no longer true.

In Ferguson, Kumanyika focused not only on the physical environment around him, but he also paid attention to Twitter comments and the growing audience on his live-streaming internet channel.

"The social media component enhances the feeling that I'm here for myself and for other people who can't be there," he said after returning to Clemson. "I'm their eyes."

A legacy of protest

The assistant professor learned the value of protest and civil disobedience from his father, a prominent Nigerian turned New York 1960s civil rights leader. Makaza Kumanyika's 1993 New York Times obituary reads like a page from a who's who list of activists and their causes: discriminatory racial hiring practices, homelessness, plight of poor farmers, environmental issues.

In 1964, the activist handcuffed himself to bars outside the police commissioner's office at police headquarters to protest what he considered police brutality.

That same year, he was arrested and committed as a psychiatric patient to Bellevue Hospital Center after trying to make a citizen's arrest on the New York City mayor, claiming the elected official used public money on racially discriminatory projects. The elder Kumanyika went on to graduate from Cornell University and later focused his efforts on poor black farmers and environmentalism.

"My father was very clear about forms of injustice," said the media researcher, who grew up in New York and New Jersey and earned a doctorate from Penn State. "There was no illusion that just because someone is a police officer, just because someone is a politician that somehow they're automatically worthy of obedience."

A half-century after Kumanyika's father protested allegations of police brutality, the son convinced his wife to spend their Thanksgiving holiday in Ferguson, where a grand jury had decided earlier that week not to charge a white police officer in the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager. The grand jury's decision sparked outrage, and nationwide the debate continues on whether the officer should have used lethal force.

Protesters have used technology of the day to amplify their message: Think megaphones, microphones. Technological advances, however, now allow protestors to speak to the digital world.

People of modest means and limited technological know-how can live-stream video from a smartphone to broadcast in real-time to a website accessible to anyone with an internet connection.

Kumanyika created his live-streaming channel just prior to arriving in Ferguson. He recorded events with his smartphone. Shortly after returning from Missouri, his UStream channel included 30 videos and had reached 22,753 viewers.

A Minnesota woman who identified herself only through the Twitter handle @evenbev said she developed a fascination with social media's ability to report major protest movements during the 2010 protests and demonstrations called the "Arab Spring." The uprisings resulted in government upheaval in Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

She watched many live-streaming broadcasts during Ferguson protests, including the Clemson assistant professor's programming.

"He was very good," @evenbev tweeted to The Greenville News.

The professor's first broadcast when arriving Nov. 25 showed local police and Missouri National Guard troops approach protesters while a loudspeaker repeated, "Due to objects being thrown this is now an unlawful assembly."

Kumanyika knew his viewers would want to see this moment and asked his broadcast marketing director, his wife, Saadiqa Lundy, to send a quick programming alert.

"Babe, can you go on Facebook and tell them I'm live-steaming?" viewers can hear him whisper.

For the next few days, Kumanyika and Lundy kept a disciplined routine of tweeting and posting on Facebook when he broadcasted on location through his smartphone. They even blogged while taking a break from everything else.

His efforts continued to receive positive feedback from friends, acquaintances and strangers who connected through social media outlets. Audience for his live-stream channel increased as allies on social media shared news of each broadcast beginning.

Retha Hill, executive director of the Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass communication at Arizona State University, said use of social and online media for protest movements like Occupy Wall Street helped connect activists throughout the country for their version, Occupy Main Street.

"All of a sudden people were learning from each other and taking up their own cause," Hill said.

Ferguson protests sparked similar demonstrations throughout the country, and people in other countries even tweeted photos and messages of support.

Not all friendly

Connections made through new media aren't just digital hugs and protest songs, though. People engage with protestors through social media just as they do in the physical world, but the responses are often quick and direct.

Hill said Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other online media allow people to respond immediately in public forums in ways they would previously occur only in private. Instead of letting emotions calm and writing a letter to the editor, social media allow people to unload angry thoughts they may not share when less upset.

"You just have regular folks who can scream and yell at each other on social media," Hill said. "These raw emotions have always been there, but now you don't have to leave the comfort of your armchair."

Kumanyika faced an onslaught of online attacks beginning on Black Friday, when he and hundreds of other demonstrators went to malls and big-box retailers to protest the police overreach and abuse they believe happened in Ferguson.

Protestors demonstrated at a St. Louis area Walmart, chanting "no justice, no peace, no racist police" and "no more Black Friday," according to a news article by the Associated Press. Many in the group chanted in the faces of police officers, most of whom were white, as shoppers passed by.

The AP story continued:

"We want to really let the world know that it is no longer business as usual," said Chenjerai Kumanyika, an assistant professor at Clemson University. He added although part of the aim in disrupting Black Friday was to call attention to disagreement with the grand jury's decision and the way the case was handled, Kumanyika said it was also to highlight other forms of injustice.

"Capitalism is one of many systems of oppression," he said as the group cleared out of the parking lot.

The report set off a firestorm of anger from people throughout the United States, Canada and other countries. More than a dozen emailed Kumanyika, most calling him nasty names or including overt racism. One letter writer said blacks are poor because of low IQ. Some emails were copied to Clemson President James Clements and communications studies department chair Karyn Jones.

"Drs. Jones and Clements, were you aware, that you had such a "leader" among your staff??" one emailer asked.

A common tweet included "Domestic terrorist & @ClemsonUniv Prof Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika shut down stores, malls, and intersections" but also included Twitter handles of national and Upstate news organizations.

Backlash against Kumanyika intensified for a few days. Some Clemson alumni opposed the assistant professor being on the streets marching and chanting. Conservative-leaning bloggers attacked the protester. Negative comments appeared on a website where students rate professors.

Kumanyika first seemed to embrace the attacks with little concern. He even posted to Facebook a displeased email from a university alumnus and donor, receiving more than 60 comments.

"Here is an email that I received this morning (as I sit here in Ferguson writing and grading) . ... " Kumanyika wrote.

He compiled the emails in a blog post for anyone to read.

After a few days of negative emails and tweets, Kumanyika seemed less confident about posting the comments attacking him on his public blog and social media. Some of it started to disappear. And then his blog that included the emails to him required a password to access.

He posted on Facebook that he "was advised to take it down so as not to exacerbate tensions at my school."

When asked, Kumanyika would not say who advised removal of the letters.

Clemson spokeswoman Cathy Sams said she knew of no issues with Kumanyika's protests impacting his faculty position since he went to Ferguson using his own resources, broke no laws and never attempted to represent the university.

In recent days, Kumanyika's blog no longer requires a password to view.

Back on campus for a few weeks, Kumanyika said he's needed time to process the experience in Ferguson to figure out insights from the experience he can use as research for a scholarly presentation.

Kumanyika said he still has to find the right balance between his professional life as an academic and with personal activism. As the semester was winding down, he also mentioned his desire to speak with fewer reporters and more students.

He said he'll remember his words to the Associated Press reporter for a long time, along with resulting online backlash.

"You have to really speak with intention because in this environment what you say may travel far and wide," he said. "I'm thankful I said things I can stand behind."

LEARN MORE

Visit GreenvilleOnline.com to watch interviews as staff writer Robbie Ward discusses social and online media with Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, who researchers human rights movements and technology as an assistant professor at Center European University in Budapest, Hungary, and Bridget Todd, current social media editor at MSNBC.com and former digital training manager at the New Organizing Institute, a political organization that trains progressive activists and organizers on digital best practices.