When Wesley Bell declared victory in the battle to become St Louis county prosecutor last month, it came just two days before the region came together once again to honor the life of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager killed by a white police officer, sparking months of protests in Ferguson, Missouri.

I don't put my faith in candidates, I place all of my faith in the people. And in the people's ability to push candidates to enact change Tef Poe, rapper, organizer, and Harvard fellow

Bell’s win was a stunning upset that has pushed the previous prosecutor and fellow Democrat, Bob McCulloch, from an office he had held for nearly three decades. With no Republican challenger, Bell is now a shoo-in for the post.

The vote, decided by a large margin, was seen as an indictment of McCulloch, on whose watch the Ferguson officer Darren Wilson was cleared of all charges in Brown’s killing.

But it was also seen as an endorsement for a man who promised a different way of doing things, and energized voters.

“People with different politics came together, people were making phone calls around the clock, knocking on doors. It was an across-the-table effort,” says St Louis native Tef Poe, a rapper, organizer and Harvard fellow. “I saw people who never vote go out and vote.”

McCulloch had the financial and institutional advantage and, right up to the end, polls showed him ahead of Bell. McCulloch, even despite his infamy in the eyes of many, also had the advantage of looking like the majority of St Louis county and the majority of prosecutors nationwide. In 2015, a study found 95% of prosecutors are white and just under 80% are white men.

A woman carries an American flag past a high school graduation photo of Michael Brown at a memorial in Ferguson. Photograph: David Goldman/AP

“I don’t come from money like that,” Bell told the Guardian after his victory. “I come from regular people.”

Bell says he’s proud of his campaign. “It was smaller donations, you know? I got a check for five dollars … that’s what they had and that’s my constituency and I appreciated it. That’s who I represent.”

Bell, an advocate of robust criminal justice reform, had already garnered national attention when he won a seat on Ferguson city council in 2015.

“I grew up, initially, in the projects in Alton, Illinois. I was seeing a lot of people on the other side of law enforcement,” said Bell, who went to high school near Ferguson.

“Growing up in this area, I was being pulled over, car searched so often I didn’t think anything of it – I thought it was normal,” Bell said. “But then I got to law school and thought, ‘Oh, so they weren’t supposed to be doing that!’”

Bell won on a platform of progressive ideals such as reforming cash bail and mandatory minimum sentencing, as well as not pursuing the death penalty.

But he is also emblematic of a new wave of prosecutors who are aware of and against inequalities in the justice system, as well as the war on drugs and its resulting mass incarceration.

“One thing I learned then [in 2015], is the absolute need for public engagement from leaders,” Bell said. “I went out to the streets for protests at the time because I wanted the people to see, to ask me questions. We have a trust deficit here and I saw my role as a bridge-builder.”

But, as Poe says, Bell still has a great deal to prove to a skeptical community riven by grief for Brown and others.

“I had a real moment when I realized I was knocking doors on behalf of a prosecutor, you know? That’s how wild the system is,” Poe said. “St Louis county is still St Louis county – the budget is still there, folks still going to jail, getting these same traffic tickets as we speak.”

“I don’t see this as a big statement about democracy, honestly, or what can happen when people vote,” he said. “This is what happens when you kill an unarmed teenager and leave him dead in the street for four and a half hours. And we have a community and a generation that watched it happen and responded. Now here we are.”

Many activists, like Poe, are holding their praise for Bell for now.

“It’s a chance now for us to engage with power differently than in the past,” Poe said, “I don’t put my faith in candidates, I place all of my faith in the people. And in the people’s ability to push candidates to enact change.”

“It’s hard, though, to get too excited for someone in the same party as McCulloch. But we’re in a long-term struggle here,” he said. “I’m waiting to see. I can’t give him credit for a game he hasn’t played yet.”

Blake Strode, the executive director for the not-for-profit civil rights law firm ArchCity Defenders, agrees. “It’s certainly a victory for the organizers who worked so hard on his campaign,” he said. “But, for the community, it’s an opportunity – and now Wesley has the chance to turn that opportunity into a victory.”

“If there’s a victory in it for me, as a community member,” Poe added, “through the lens of retaliation for all the people I knew that were unjustly thrown away by Bob McCulloch.”

Strode said: “Bell can now challenge these old notions around arresting and incarcerating people as a solution to all of our social problems in the region.”

“This isn’t a [power on] ‘both-sides’ situation,” he added. “We all know about the tension, distrust and anger between law enforcement and communities most subjected to police power, but that tension exists in an asymmetrical fashion in that all of the power is on one side: law enforcement.”

Strode continued: “They are empowered by virtue of the law, by virtue of their badge, their guns, their handcuffs, and their jails.”

“And that’s now the side that Wesley Bell will have an ability and a chance to rein in.”