Ferguson elects two more black council members amid high voter turnout

FERGUSON, Mo., April 8 (UPI) -- Voters in Ferguson, Mo., elected two more black candidates to its six-person city council Tuesday, the first local elections since the shooting death of Michael Brown last fall.

Ward 1's Ella Jones and Ward 3's Wesley Bell were elected, meaning that Ferguson City Council will be half African-American for the first time in the city's history. Two-thirds of Ferguson's population is black.

"We need more representation because you have to understand the culture of the people and you need to understand how to interact with people," Jones said.

"You cannot have sustainable change without political access," Bell said before the election. "For far too long, African-Americans didn't get involved enough in the process and as a result we get ignored."

Dwayne Jones, who was not up for re-election, is the council's only sitting African-American member.

Former Ferguson Mayor Brian Fletcher was elected from Ward 2. Fletcher, who is white, defeated another white candidate, Bob Hudgins, who has often participated in protests against police violence.

Tuesday's election were also marked by relatively high voter turnout, with 29 percent of registered voters hitting the polls. Similar elections have seen 12 percent voter turnout.

Ferguson became a flashpoint for race relations last August, when Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black man, was shot by a white police officer, Darren Wilson. The shooting set off months of protests that intensified in November when a grand jury decided not to indict Wilson.