On the morning of the Florida State Fair on Feb. 7, 2014, Andrew “Pee-Wee” Joseph III, 14, had laid out two different outfits on his bed. His father, Andrew Joseph Jr., laughs that the outfit his son came downstairs in – for the last time – was neither. It was a pair of nice black jeans and a dark T-shirt with glow-in-the-dark letters.
“He had gone to the barber,” Andrew told the St. Louis American. “The fair was a big deal. All his little friends were waiting on the front steps when he got home from school.”
Before the group left, Pee-Wee – an all-star athlete attending a private school –invited all his public-school friends up to his room to change into nicer outfits.
The neighbor’s mother dropped them all off at the fair. Yet during the course of night, Pee-Wee and his 12-year-old neighbor – both black boys – were profiled as gang members. Police took the boys outside the fair and made them strip their shirts to search for gang tattoos. Despite not having any, the police put the two boys in a police vehicle with other black men and dropped them off by the side of the highway three miles from the fairgrounds.
While the two were attempting to walk back to the fairgrounds, Pee-Wee was hit by a car and killed.
The next day the story that appeared in the news was that Pee-Wee was a gang member, who was kicked out of the fair and was being chased across the highway by someone with a gun.
“My honor-roll child who has never had a fight in his life,” Andrew said. “To be running from a gang member on the interstate. This is what they are feeding me.”
Tomorrow, Pee-Wee’s younger sister will be among of the youth who participate in the event Youth Speak Truth: Responding to radicalized violence in America. Held at 4 p.m. on Friday at Greater St. Marks Church, 9950 Glen Owen Dr., the event brings together the siblings and family members of people who have been killed by police or community violence to talk about their experience.
The event is part of the Truth Telling Project, which has held “hearings” in Ferguson and about 30 locations around the country –including Minnesota, D.C. and New York.
“It’s rooted in the notion of truth and reconciliation,” said David Ragland, co-director of the Truth Telling Project. “America doesn’t value or listen to certain kind of voices. We are trying to be part of the shifting of the narrative.”
A youth art exhibit, facilitated by the Artivists, will also be on display at the church.
The exhibit and hearing will kick off the Michael Brown Jr. Foundation Memorial Weekend “Chosen for Change,” marking two years since Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer. The weekend runs Aug. 5-7, and 9.
“We’re very cautious about protecting the children, their feelings, and really validating their stories,” said Jana Gamble, vice president with Chosen for Change, told St. Louis Public Radio. “They are working prior to the event with different healers in the community — counselors, therapists, religious leaders, so they can feel supported and comfortable.”
On Saturday, Aug. 6, Walk for Justice march will leave from Michael Brown Jr.’s Memorial in Canfield Green Apartments to Normandy High School. Participants must pre-register online and pay a $2 fee that goes to provide water, popsicles and cooling stations for the crowd.
“The special one is the walk, from Canfield to the cemetery that he’s buried in, and to the school that he last completed, high school,” Michael Brown Sr. said. “I just feel like it was connected all the way. This is the last of the accomplishments that he made, and from where he laid 4.5 hours in the street, to where he lies now in the cemetery.”
Sunday, the Urban League Cultural Center, 3701 Grandel Square, will host a scholarship and benefit dinner headlined by Rev. Al Sharpton, attended by Ferguson residents and other families who have lost loved ones to violence.
On Tuesday, the foundation will host a vigil at the site where Brown Jr. was killed. Participants will observe a national moment of silence, one minute for each of the four and a half hours Brown Jr.’s body remained in the street after he was shot.
The idea of the Truth Telling Project is to have people who experience the violence comment on their own lives and their accounts be the official document, Ragland said.
When Michael Brown Jr. was killed on Aug. 9, 2014, Ragland was employed as a professor at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. Yet he was in St. Louis for his mother’s birthday, which happens to be the same day at Brown’s death.
After the unrest began, Ragland stayed and the university allowed him to work remotely from St. Louis. Ragland teamed up with Pastor Cori Bush, co-director of the project, and others on the idea of a truth and reconciliation initiative. They intend to share the stories on a website early next year, particularly to be used as a teaching tool.
“The last picture I have of my son is a mug shot, of him standing up against a fence without his shirt on in the rain,” Andrew said. “This is my child. The last time my child was alive he was in the sheriff’s custody. This has got to change. For every Michael Brown, there are a hundred Andrew Josephs.”
For more details about the weekend’s events, visit www.mb2mw.org.
Information from St. Louis Pubic Radio contributed to this report.
