Year After Death, Michael Brown Lies In Relative Obscurity
There is no headstone marking his grave.
Posted: 11/29/2015 02:38 PM EST
NORMANDY, Mo. (AP) — Michael Brown once told an uncle that the world
would know his name one day, and he was right. Fifteen months after the
black 18-year-old's killing by a white Ferguson police officer made him
a key figure in the debate over the treatment of blacks by U.S. law
enforcement, though, Brown lies buried in relative obscurity.
Brown is among the most notable residents of 160-year-old St. Peter's Cemetery, but there is no headstone marking his grave. Instead the burial plot — Section 10, Block F, Lot 12, Grave 4 — is visible only when gazing down at a concrete slab simply spray-painted in orange with "MB."
Other matters have interfered in getting the permanent headstone in place, said Lyah LeFlore, vice president of the Michael O.D. Brown "We Love Our Sons & Daughters" Foundation that Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, helped launch in her late son's memory. Among the distractions: The unfolding wrongful-death lawsuit that McSpadden and Brown's father filed against Ferguson, the St. Louis suburb's former police chief and Darren Wilson, the officer who shot and killed Brown during an August 2014 confrontation.
The cost presumably isn't an issue: In the weeks after Brown's death, hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised through fundraising websites to defray the family's funeral, burial, travel and living expenses.
"Everybody has to do things kind of at their own pace," LeFlore said of efforts to mark Brown's grave. McSpadden "just wants something beautiful, poetic and wonderful in her son's memory. It has just taken time."
Brown was unarmed when he was killed by Wilson, who is white and who has since left the police force. Brown's death revived long-simmering questions about the police treatment of minorities throughout the U.S. and energized the national Black Lives Matter movement.
The Justice Department later cleared Wilson, concluding that evidence backed his claim that he shot Brown in self-defense after Brown tried to grab his gun during a struggle through the window of Wilson's police vehicle, then came toward him threateningly after briefly running away.
Now buried four miles from where he died, Brown is among an estimated 90,000 eternal residents of the 119-acre graveyard, superintendent Bill Baumgartner said. Among the more famous people buried there are Negro League baseball player James Thomas "Cool Papa" Bell, who was considered among the fastest players ever, and Wendell Oliver Pruitt, a pioneering black military pilot and Tuskegee Airman killed during a 1945 training exercise.
Baumgartner believes reporters make up most of those looking to see Brown's final resting place — at least often enough that he has a ready stash of photocopied maps in the cemetery office, each with a black line directing them to Brown's spot among a section of low, undistinctive headstones.
LeFlore said McSpadden worries that her son's gravesite might be defaced. Last Christmas, an unidentified motorist — whether intentionally or accidentally — plowed through a shrine in the street where Brown fell dead. And last April, a tree planted in a Ferguson park in Brown's memory was vandalized within hours and its dedication marker was stolen.
"You don't want to think someone's going to trash your child's gravesite. That's a real fear," LeFlore said. "There are more supporters of the cause of making a change than there are those hate-mongerers. You just cannot stop what is inevitable."
Brown is among the most notable residents of 160-year-old St. Peter's Cemetery, but there is no headstone marking his grave. Instead the burial plot — Section 10, Block F, Lot 12, Grave 4 — is visible only when gazing down at a concrete slab simply spray-painted in orange with "MB."
Other matters have interfered in getting the permanent headstone in place, said Lyah LeFlore, vice president of the Michael O.D. Brown "We Love Our Sons & Daughters" Foundation that Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, helped launch in her late son's memory. Among the distractions: The unfolding wrongful-death lawsuit that McSpadden and Brown's father filed against Ferguson, the St. Louis suburb's former police chief and Darren Wilson, the officer who shot and killed Brown during an August 2014 confrontation.
The cost presumably isn't an issue: In the weeks after Brown's death, hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised through fundraising websites to defray the family's funeral, burial, travel and living expenses.
"Everybody has to do things kind of at their own pace," LeFlore said of efforts to mark Brown's grave. McSpadden "just wants something beautiful, poetic and wonderful in her son's memory. It has just taken time."
Brown was unarmed when he was killed by Wilson, who is white and who has since left the police force. Brown's death revived long-simmering questions about the police treatment of minorities throughout the U.S. and energized the national Black Lives Matter movement.
The Justice Department later cleared Wilson, concluding that evidence backed his claim that he shot Brown in self-defense after Brown tried to grab his gun during a struggle through the window of Wilson's police vehicle, then came toward him threateningly after briefly running away.
Now buried four miles from where he died, Brown is among an estimated 90,000 eternal residents of the 119-acre graveyard, superintendent Bill Baumgartner said. Among the more famous people buried there are Negro League baseball player James Thomas "Cool Papa" Bell, who was considered among the fastest players ever, and Wendell Oliver Pruitt, a pioneering black military pilot and Tuskegee Airman killed during a 1945 training exercise.
Baumgartner believes reporters make up most of those looking to see Brown's final resting place — at least often enough that he has a ready stash of photocopied maps in the cemetery office, each with a black line directing them to Brown's spot among a section of low, undistinctive headstones.
LeFlore said McSpadden worries that her son's gravesite might be defaced. Last Christmas, an unidentified motorist — whether intentionally or accidentally — plowed through a shrine in the street where Brown fell dead. And last April, a tree planted in a Ferguson park in Brown's memory was vandalized within hours and its dedication marker was stolen.
"You don't want to think someone's going to trash your child's gravesite. That's a real fear," LeFlore said. "There are more supporters of the cause of making a change than there are those hate-mongerers. You just cannot stop what is inevitable."
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A combination picture shows a makeshift memorial near the site where unarmed teen Michael Brown was shot dead along Canfield Road in Ferguson, Missouri on August 22, 2014 (top) and the same location on July 20, 2015.
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A combination picture shows a man demanding the criminal indictment of the white police officer who shot Brown in August. He holds an image of Brown outside the Ferguson Police Station in Missouri on November 24, 2014 (top) and the same location on July 22, 2015.
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A combination picture shows members of the National Guard standing guard outside the Ferguson Police Department where demonstrators gathered to protest the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on November 28, 2014 (top), and the same location on July 20, 2015.
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A combination picture shows local resident Ken Kendricks Jr. putting his hands together in prayer at a makeshift memorial at the site along Canfield Road where Brown was killed (top) on July 20, 2014, and the same site on July 20, 2015.
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A combination picture shows a protester holding a sign outside a Walgreens drug store which was set alight after a grand jury returned no indictment in the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, on November 24, 2014 (top) and the same location on July 20, 2015.
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A combination picture shows the Gateway Arch monument and Old Courthouse building in the background as police in riot gear walk through Kiener Plaza after protesters demanding justice for Michael Brown disrupted traffic in St. Louis, Missouri on November 30, 2014 (top), and the same location on July 22, 2015.
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A combination image shows St. Louis County policemen detaining a demonstrator in a McDonald's parking lot during a protest against the shooting of unarmed black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on August 20, 2014 (top), and the same location on July 20, 2015.
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A combination picture shows supporters of officer Darren Wilson holding placards outside Barney's Sports Pub in St. Louis, Missouri on August 23, 2014 (top), and the same location on July 22, 2015.
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A combination picture shows a police officer cordoning off an area around a business which was burned after a grand jury returned no indictment in the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on November 29, 2014 (top), and the same location on July 21, 2015.
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A combination image shows student activists demanding justice for the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, staging a 'die-in', part of the nation-wide "Hands up, walk out" protest at Washington University's Tisch Commons in St. Louis, Missouri on December 1, 2014 (top) and the same location on July 23, 2015.
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A combination picture shows a resident walking past a sign outside a business in Ferguson, Missouri on November 20, 2014 (top), and the same location on July 24, 2015.
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