Last night, one such group, with matching revolutionary-themed t-shirts, brought a bullhorn and a wordy chant: “Indict, convict, send those killer cops to jail. The whole damn system is guilty as hell.” The chant failed to spread; locals may be getting a little tired of chanting.

“There’s a lot of people from outside the community, here,” says Ferguson’s young white mayor, James Knowles. He gained his share of notoriety during the height of the protests, especially after he was quoted as saying there was no racial divide in his city. He’s learned to become more circumspect about what he says to reporters.

“At first it was really difficult to understand [why so many outsiders came to Ferguson],” he says. “But now I realize it’s a national issue … and we’re proud to start the discussion, we’re proud hopefully to come up with some answers … and hopefully we won’t see this again — not in Ferguson, not in any city in the nation.”