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Center Called 'Powerful First Step' as Ferguson Still Mends

by Associated Press

   FERGUSON, MO. --

   The National Urban League president helped christen a new job training
   and education center in Ferguson on Wednesday, calling the site a
   "powerful first step" in helping the St. Louis suburb that's still
   mending from unrest over the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown
   nearly three years ago.

   On the same day the Urban League kicked off its national conference in
   St. Louis, Marc Morial said much work remains even with the arrival of
   the $3 million center, built on the property where a QuikTrip
   convenience store was burned during rioting after a white officer
   killed the 18-year-old Brown, who was black and unarmed, in August
   2014.
   Oklahoma-based QuikTrip demolished the building and donated the
   property to the Urban League, which announced plans for the center in
   July 2015. Several companies and organizations donated money to build
   it, including the Salvation Army, which contributed $1.4 million.
   Morial said the center is already paid for.
   The centerpiece of the Ferguson Community Empowerment Center is the
   Urban League's Save Our Sons job training and placement service. It
   also will house offices for the Salvation Army, Lutheran Hope Center
   and the University of Missouri Extension Service.
   At Wednesday's opening ceremony, Ferguson City Councilman Wesley Bell
   said building it at the former QuikTrip site was symbolic of how
   Ferguson is rising.
   "This building has to mean something," said Bell, a black man elected
   after Brown's death. "It has to represent something."
   The store was torched the night after Brown's death, as a peaceful
   candlelight vigil was occurring at the shooting site less than a mile
   away.
   Brown had gotten into a scuffle with then-officer Darren Wilson after
   Wilson told Brown and a friend to get out of the street where they were
   walking. Wilson said that when he shot Brown, the 18-year-old was
   moving menacingly toward him. Some witnesses had said Brown was
   surrendering.
   The initial unrest erupted after Brown's body lay in the street for
   hours in the summer heat. More protests gripped the Missouri town after
   a St. Louis County grand jury in November 2014 declined to charge
   Wilson, who resigned a short time later. The U.S. Justice Department
   also cleared him, but an investigation by that agency uncovered
   patterns of racial bias and profiling in Ferguson's police and courts.
   Ferguson reached a settlement with the Justice Department that calls
   for revised police practices, court changes and other modifications.
   The Community Empowerment Center includes a bench and plaque in memory
   of Brown. His parents, Michael Brown Sr. and Lezley McSpadden, were
   among several hundred people who attended the center ceremony.
   About 20,000 people are expected to attend the Urban League conference
   that will also include a "State of Black America" town hall meeting, a
   gathering of urban mayors to discuss economic needs, a career fair, and
   a volunteer day in which backpacks will be donated to 10,000 children.