Missoula Mayor John Engen published an emotional open letter to Missoula on his feelings about local and national issues that have come to the forefront in the past few weeks.
Officials at Missoula's Big Sky High School have asked several students to no longer wear items of clothing with the Confederate Flag, or to have that flag on any other item.
Black student groups have been complaining for months about racial slurs and other slights on the system's overwhelmingly white flagship campus in Columbia.
The police chief in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson has resigned in the wake of a scathing Justice Department report prompted by the fatal shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old by a white police officer.