Cami Thomas' 'Smoke City' Looks At Segregation In St. Louis

ST. LOUIS, MO — "Smoke City," a documentary series by 25-year-old Cami Thomas, is more than just a look at race and segregation in Ferguson, Missouri, it's a way to process trauma, she told Teen Vogue this week.

"I needed a way to process things," Thomas told the magazine. "Like a lot of young black people in the state, seeing [black] death broadcasted everywhere, I didn’t know what else to do."

Thomas was a senior in college when Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson Police officer, shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, spurring protests across the St. Louis region. Her documentary series, she says, was meant to show that the metaphorical smoke still hasn't cleared since Brown's death and the subsequent protests in 2014. In it, she follows residents of Ferguson and other black communities through their daily lives, showing the violence and trauma many African Americans experience every day.

(Subscribe to Patch for daily newsletters and the chance to win $100.)

The documentary series' first season looked at Walnut Park, Ballwin, Florissant, Ferguson and south St. Louis. The recently-released second examines Dogtown, Hazelwood, University City, Chesterfield and north St. Louis.

Thomas said the follow up is far less polite in how it deals with segregation in St. Louis. In many ways, she feels she was holding back with the first season, she explained, saying the tone change was inspired, in part, by a close call in which a man approached her car and began shooting earlier this year.

Thomas said she was "in shambles" after the incident and conflicted about telling police that the shooter was a young black man in a dark hoodie.

"If I send the police out there with the description of a young black male in a hoodie and they see someone who meets that description, the chances of it being the same person are pretty low," she said, adding that she didn't want to put a random black teenager in danger by sending police out with that description.

She recounts that night in the second season's third episode.

"We don’t have time to gently get into these discussions. It’s either we’re going to talk about this and progress together or we’re not," she told Teen Vogue.

Episode two examines segregation and gentrification in University City, where elected officials are poised to vote on a contentious development project in the city's mostly-minority Third Ward that could either revitalize the community or lead to gentrification and displacement of minority homes and businesses, depending on who you talk to.

Ultimately, Thomas said, she hopes her documentary will begin to heal the racial divide that has plagued St. Louis and its suburbs for far too long.

Read more from Thomas' interview with Teen Vogue.

Watch "Smoke City" online here.

Photo: Demonstrators, marking the one-year anniversary of the shooting of Michael Brown, protest along West Florrisant Street on August 11, 2015 in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer on August 9, 2014. His death sparked months of sometimes violent protests in Ferguson and drew nationwide focus to police shootings. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)