Brown Memorials

FERGUSON • More than two dozen people gathered here Tuesday night before the third anniversary of the controversial police killing of Michael Brown Jr. to rebuild a makeshift memorial in the spot where he died. "We can never forget this," Meldon Moffitt said to the group of area residents and community activists on Canfield Drive in the Canfield Green apartment complex. "This is ground zero." Cars drove around the group as they laid teddy bears and a heart-shaped balloon and lit candles in the street where Brown was shot by then-officer Darren Wilson, not far from a bronze plaque and dove installed in 2015 to replace past makeshift memorials. Some passersby shouted messages of support to the group, which included St. Louis 5th Ward Democratic Committeeman Rasheen Aldridge and State Rep. Bruce Franks Jr., D-St. Louis."I'm really delighted to see people come out here, it shows they haven't forgotten," Moffitt said. "As long as we support each other, all these lives — Mike Brown, Isaiah Hammett, Kajieme Powell, all of them — will be remembered." Moffitt has participated in demonstrations at the site "since day one" after Brown was killed, he said. Almost everyone at the memorial site Tuesday night had been there in the immediate aftermath, too, he said.  "These are faces I recognize, faces I know," he said. "We're still out here letting our voices be heard.""There are other people who got a lot of attention at that time, then they disappeared. Where are they now?"Not much has changed in Ferguson since Brown's death, Moffitt said. "Where are the police and politicians tonight?" he said. "If they cared about the community, about making a difference, they would be here with us. They're a part of this, too." Tammie Holland and her daughter Meadow, 9, drove from their home in south St. Louis to visit the memorial Tuesday. The pair were in Ferguson in the hours after Brown's death, Holland said. They saw blood in the street."I had to be here," Holland said. "I thought, 'I still h... (STLtoday.com)

For all the fiery debate aroused by public memorials to the Confederacy, a lawsuit seeking to block this city from removing statues of two Southern Civil War generals led to dry courtroom arguments Friday over obscure provisions of Virginia law, with a judge declining to decide whether to throw out the legal challenge.One of the statues, of Robert E. Lee, has stood in a city park for 93 years and was the focal point of violent clashes last month involving hundreds of white supremacist demonstrators and counterprotesters. The other statue, of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, is on public land nearby.Together they have become the latest epicenter in a national debate over the propriety of civic monuments honoring the Confederacy and how the history of the Old South should be interpreted.Several plaintiffs, including the Virginia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, sued Charlottesville in March, shortly after the City Council decided, by a 3-to-2 vote, to remove the two hulking bronze sculptures. On Friday, Judge Richard Moore, of Charlottesville Circuit Court, listened as a lawyer for the city argued the lawsuit should be dismissed.About a hundred spectators crowded into Moore’s courtroom, anticipating definitive action by the judge. Moore said he hopes to issue a ruling in two to three weeks, “but that might be overly optimistic.”One of the plaintiffs, B. Frank Earnest, referring to his many Confederate-soldier ancestors, said in an interview, “this is all about family.”To Northerners in the 1860s, he said, the Civil War, “was like Afghanistan,” meaning a far-off conflict, while to Southerners, “it was about defending our towns, our homes.”During a break in the hearing, glancing across the courtroom at Lisa Robertson, the lawyer handling the case for the city, Earnest said, “This is about punishing us for our ancestors.”Robertson and her boss, City Attorney S. Craig Brown, declined to comment.No matter the outcome of Friday’s legal arguments, the proceeding is unlike... (Press Herald)