FERGUSON, Missouri (First Alert 4) – Ten years to the day after 18-year-old Michael Brown was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, the anniversary of his life was commemorated.
“It’s an ongoing battle. We have Breonna. We have Brother Michael. We have Sonya. It’s always going on,” says former presidential candidate and activist Dr. Cornel West.
The legendary civil rights activist attended a Black Ball benefit gala at the Missouri History Museum on Friday along with Mike Brown Sr. and his family.
West was among national and local leaders in attendance, including St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones and entertainer and activist David Banner.
“For me, Michael Brown represents a great wave and an even greater river of great black people committed to love, freedom and healing their wounds,” West says.
“He woke up this city. He woke up the world,” says Nikitta Nixon, mother of three.
On Friday, Nikitta Nixon brought her three sons to a Ferguson Urban League art exhibit honoring Brown and the people who died fighting in his name.
“Even though they are so young, they must know that something like this can happen to me.”
A few steps away, next to the telephone box that was preserved during the 2014 uprising, there will be a mural painted by Brown’s mother.
For Nixon, it serves as a memory for her children.
“He didn’t deserve to die like that, lying on the ground,” Nixon said. “I want them to know that it can still happen to them. It can still happen to them. That’s our reality.”
The day of his death, a decade later, began with a solidarity march at Ground Zero on Canfield Drive.
It ended with an evening of gathering those who witness a new day in the name of “Chosen For Change,” an organization founded by his father in memory of his son.
“The events we have done over the last decade have been all about bringing people together, and that’s the most important thing,” says Michael Brown Sr.
“I hope no one else, no other black mother or father, parent or anyone else raising black children has to experience this pain,” says Sir Ervin Williams of St. Louis.
All rights reserved.
