Ferguson mayor: I regret saying there was no racial divide

FERGUSON, Mo. - In August, Ferguson Mayor James Knowles came under fire for remarking that his city had no racial divide. Now, with the grand jury's decision expected in the coming days over whether a policeman should be charged in the death of an unarmed teenager, he's preparing for “all worst-case scenarios." 

With Ferguson again on the edge, America Tonight spoke with Knowles at length about what he meant by his earlier comments, whether the police chief should keep his job and what he’d say to Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed Mike Brown. Our questions and his answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Getting here, I imagined that we would see somebody that was really stressed, but you don't appear that way. How are you preparing for the announcement of the grand jury?

Early on though, I was burning the candle at both ends. It was really tough and you could see it. There’s some pictures out there and some early interviews where I had friends say, like, "Wow, you look like you got hit by a truck." It's like I hadn't slept in six days, literally.

What’s been the hardest part of this for you?

The hardest part has been seeing the community that I grew up in, the community that I love, the community I've committed to serving – I've been on the city council for almost 10 years now – to see it embroiled in this kind of racial tension, to see this kind of uproar.

I grew up in a community that was always racially diverse, a community that continuously grew more predominantly African-American. The school I went to was predominantly African-American. By the time I graduated, [I'd] never seen any kind of racial frustrations or strife. We're a community that really kind of bucked the trend when it came to white flight. If you look at the neighboring communities around Ferguson, they're all between 90 to 95 [percent], some of them are actually 100 percent African-American. Ferguson's only 67 percent and that's really because you do have a large number of white residents who stayed and really were happy with the diversity, Embraced the diversity. So for me to see this happen to our community, it took a lot of us by surprise really. 

Early on you said there was no racial divide in Ferguson. Do you regret saying that?

Absolutely. I mean, I regret saying it because it's an argument that's difficult to have. Because yes, there are racial divides in this country. There are divides between men and women. And I was defensive. I took the stand that I felt somebody was attacking what I knew to be a good community who embraced diversity, who loved our neighbors … I'm obviously very, very much regretting having said that, but I think people, again, need to recognize that those divides, those differences [doesn't] mean this community didn't have good race relations before this happened.

What's been your worst moment or the most difficult part of this whole process?

There's been a few times where I felt like Ferguson was alone. And I therefore felt alone – not personally, but as a leader of the community. The city and the citizens have been extremely resilient throughout all this, and one thing that I've recognized from the beginning ... is that the issues here transcend the city of Ferguson. They're not just county issues. They're not just state issues. There are national issues at play. And a small community, a small community police department, a small city staff, is not really equipped to deal with the issues that the United States has dealt with for 400 years.

When you say others should share in the burden being shouldered by Ferguson, who are those?

There are a lot of things that people are frustrated about: school systems, education funding, health care, access to jobs. There are 25 communities within a mile radius of the city of Ferguson. All of these communities have similar issues. All of these communities have transgressions that people are angry about. All of that anger is being lumped on the city of Ferguson.