Peaceful service

Earlier Tuesday evening, about 45 people gathered for a short and peaceful memorial service at Wellspring Church in Ferguson, which has held discussions about race since Brown’s fatal shooting on Aug. 9, 2014, by then-officer Darren Wilson.

Half a dozen candles sat at the front of the church, as the service began with a slow song played on the keyboard. Leaders of different faiths went to the pulpit to call for peace and an end to the killing of young African-Americans.

“Are you just coming here to remember? Or will you make a pledge to get in the way?” the Rev. Cassandra Gould, of Quinn Chapel AME Church in Jefferson City, asked the congregation.

She said that just remembering, creating hashtags and lamenting the deaths of black and brown children were not enough. People must get out and protest, as they have done at the front doors of police departments and municipal courthouses, she said.

“Because of his blackness, he got in the way,” Gould said of Brown, “and until being black does not mean we’re getting in the way, people who have privilege need to get in the way.”

The 45-minute service ended with attendees joining in the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”