It has been a year since African-American teenager Michael Brown's atrocious homicide in Ferguson happened, but his passing is anything but forgotten.
BBC reported that Michael Brown Sr., Michael Brown's father and namesake, led a protest around Ferguson on the eve of his son's first death anniversary to commemorate his unlawful passing. The march started at Canfield Drive -- the same site where his son was shot dead by a white police officer, Darren Wilson, on August 9, 2014. Activists and religious figures were among the hundreds of people, who marched through the town in Michael Brown's honor. Expressing his pain and dismay in the place of his son's death, Brown Sr. said that time did nothing to heal his wounds.
"We never had a time to just sit and grieve so this just happened for me... Nothing has changed for me. Nothing," he said to Daily Mail.
"At the end of the day, I still lost my boy," he continued. "I'm still hurting. My family's still hurting."
Gathering an armful of stuffed animals, he placed them in the middle of the street, marking the spot where his son died. Brown Sr. told the Associated Press that his son's death anniversary brought back a flood of emotion, and, at the same time, notes the importance of standing up against police brutality and use of force. When asked about his thoughts on other police-related controversial killings, he candidly said to Daily Mail, "I think about my son laying dead in the street."
According to the Associated Press, cars and drum corps joined the march, which ended at Normandy High School. Furthermore, several people went to St. Louis in support of the protest. Darius Simpson, an Eastern Michigan University student, went to the town for the weekend and joined the march. Simpson was never an activist to begin with, but it all changed during a trip to Ferguson last year during the height of the movement.
"Something snapped in me, seeing the memorial, seeing how Ferguson reacted inspired me to take it back to Michigan," Simpson shared.
Another march will be held this Sunday and will start again on Canfield Drive. A 4.5-minute silence will be observed, symbolizing the hours Mike's body lay on the road. According to the Associated Press report, while many groups are wanting to commit civil disobedience, Brown Sr. has been asking them to maintain the peace on his son's death anniversary.
"No drama," he said. "No stupidity, so we can just have some kind of peace."
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