On graduation, Brown's last words to his classmate: 'We made it'

This week, 19-year old Raquan Smith will head to the University of Missouri-St Louis to set up his freshman year dorm room and meet with his advisor before the first day of class. He hopes to major in theater arts, with a minor in psychology. It’s a major feat for a kid from the wrong side of the tracks in St. Louis. His fellow graduate from Normandy High School – Michael Brown – won’t get that chance.

Smith was at home when he got the call that his unarmed classmate had been shot and killed by a cop. He said he was completely overwhelmed.

“I was angry, I was sad, I was very emotional about everything that happened, because he was supposed to start college that Monday,” he said. “There are no words to describe that emotion, period.”

And he had one question.

“What do we tell our children?” he said. “…What would I tell a little brother, a little sister, or nephew or niece? What does a parent tell their son or their daughter about what has transpired on that day, broad daylight? We’re supposed to know that the police are here to protect and serve.”

Smith described “Mike,” as everyone called him, as anything but the negative image of a threatening young man.

“He was built large, so it’s a judgment thing about the way he looked, but he was not that kind of guy,” Smith said. “He was cool.”

One teacher referred to Brown as a “gentle giant”, a description that resonated for Smith.

Even before Smith and Brown’s class graduated last spring, Normandy School District had been plagued with financial and accreditation issues, and there was a real fear that their high school would close its doors before they got the chance to don their caps and gowns.

Smith became a spokesman for his senior class at Normandy, going in front of the legislature, the mayor and the governor to plead for a resolution allowing the school to stay open. Smith is an amateur actor, which he said gave him the poise he needed for his activism. His ability to perform seemed to make an impression on Brown.

“Mike asked me how I got into plays and acting,” Smith said. “He was trying to get a feel for how it would feel to be in front of a crowd, how to have a standard of performance.”

Brown had planned to attend Vatterott College – where the rapper Nelly has an association - and hoped to create the kind of beat music he’d loved since childhood.

Ophelia Troupe, who was Brown’s art teacher from kindergarten to fifth grade, said she would play her son’s rap music in class as a reward for good behavior, and Brown couldn’t get enough.

“Michael was that student who would always say, ‘Be quiet! Be quiet! So we get to hear the beats!’” she remembered.

Troupe hadn’t seen Brown since elementary school when he showed up for his high school graduation in May. She was there to help students get dressed and didn’t recognize him at first. She said the late teenager came up to her and said: “You don’t remember me? I’m Michael! Michael Brown!”

After a hug, he explained to Troupe that he’d finished all his courses and that it was important to him to walk across the graduation stage. Brown hadn’t originally planned to attend and hadn’t ordered a cap and gown,  but a classmate didn’t show up and there was a spare. Troupe said the gown was too short and the sleeves didn’t make it to his wrists, but he proudly put in on and walked across the stage.

Afterwards, Brown came over to the refreshment table, overjoyed, and asked Troupe if her son was still making music and if he might help him with his own.

“And I said, ‘Sure,’” Troupe remembered.

“He was a wonderful child and an awesome person, who knew where he was going,” she said. “No matter what picture has been painted of him, he was a kid, kids do things, kids can be forgiven and move on.”

Dedra Sealy, another former elementary school teacher of Brown’s, bumped into him on her way home from work in June.  Besides Brown, five other former students of Sealy’s have died since the days she taught them.

“I have kids who I’ve seen that were pretty much problematic and I could see things perhaps happening to them along their journey, but he was definitely not one of them,” she said. “…All these things that are happening to make him infamous, they’re postmortem, so that’s the sad thing about it. He won’t ever get to know all these great things that happen. So we just hope something good comes out of it.”