Center called 'powerful first step' as Ferguson still mends

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 already is 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.

Michael P. McMillan, president and CEO, Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, prepares to cut the ribbon during the dedication of a new community empowerment center Wednesday in Ferguson, Missouri.Jeff Roberson ~ Associated Press

"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 also will 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.