St. Louis activist and filmmaker Cami Thomas moved back to St. Louis from college a year after Michael Brown’s death. While news of the 2014 shooting and the protests that followed grabbed national attention, she was miles away at school — grappling with the developments and fallout.
When she returned to St. Louis, Thomas said people told her she was fortunate to move back “after the smoke cleared.” In talking with neighbors and friends, however, she wondered if locals weren’t still wrestling with age-old problems — namely segregation and discrimination.
That notion is the premise for Thomas’ documentary series “Smoke City.” She developed the series to understand the region’s racial and socioeconomic divides. Thomas says she hopes the episodes encourage people to get to know neighborhoods besides their own. Check out the full story
By Ashley Lisenby, St. Louis Public Radio
