Vowing to Fight On, Activists Honor Legacy of Ferguson's Mike Brown

Across the country on Tuesday, community members, activists, racial justice advocates, and others held a global moment of silence to mark two years since the killing of Mike Brown Jr., whose death at the hands of a Ferguson, Missouri police officer sparked a national call for change—a moment that many say has yet to arrive.

“On Saturday, August 9, 2014, the entire world was impacted by the murder of Michael Brown Jr.,” wrote the Chosen for Change foundation, created in his honor. The group asked supporters to be silent for four and a half minutes, beginning at 11:55am CDT, to represent the four and a half hours Brown “laid on the hot street in the middle of Canfield Green Apartments in ‪Ferguson, Missouri.”

Brown, a black 18-year-old, was unarmed when he was shot by white officer Darren Wilson. His brutal and unnecessary death prompted fierce community protests and national outrage from a community that had long been the victim of systemic discrimination and abuse by the U.S. criminal justice system.

“Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” and “Black Lives Matter” became the national rallying cry to address those grievances, and the movement swiftly followed.

As people shared their mourning and reflections on social media, many expressed how Brown himself “doesn’t know it but … changed all of our lives & sparked a revolutionary fire that will never be extinguished,” as activist Delo Taylor put it.

Similarly, columnist Kristen West Savali wrote at The Root on Tuesday:

New York Daily News columnist Shaun King shared on Twitter his thoughts on Brown’s “deeply unjust” killing, adding: “I do believe that #MikeBrown is a martyr. His death, and the injustice surrounding it, sparked the movement we are in right now.”