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Facing History and Ourselves, a Memphis non-profit focused on education about racism, prejudice, and antisemitism, said Friday that Brandon Webber was involved with the group as a Central High School student.
Webber was shot and killed Wednesday evening by U.S. Marshals attempting to arrest him on warrants for a shooting incident in Hernando, Mississippi earlier this month.
Since the shooting, Webber has been hailed as a good student, loving father, and gifted artist by friends and family in online memorials. Law enforcement officials in Mississippi called him violent and “cold-blooded.”
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In a message to its members on Friday, Facing History and Ourselves gave a long list of Webber’s involvement with the group. They said people “loved working with him” and that his personality was contagious.”
Here’s the message in full:
“When Brandon was involved with Facing History as a student at Central High School from 2015-2017, we were impressed by his leadership qualities and found him to be a passionate young man about the issues facing his community.
Brandon first got involved in Facing History and Ourselves his freshman year at Central High; he took Mary McIntosh’s freshman history class.
[pullquote-1] In his sophomore year, he joined the Student Leadership Group (SLG). He was a facilitator for the SLG/ Warriors Unite group at Central. This group of 120 students facilitated the advisory sessions.
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He also facilitated at our community teach-in’s, where he met students from other schools.
His co-facilitators always loved working with him. His personality was contagious and he made the participants feel at ease while talking about difficult topics. Brandon was passionate about breaking down stereotypes in his school.
His senior year he spoke on a panel and shared his life story at our symposium. Brandon said, ‘The Facing History course helps you find out who you are as a person, and who the people beside you are. It helps you break down stereotypes.'”
Later, Facing History issued a formal statement about Webber’s death.
Here it is:
“The Facing History and Ourselves community grieves the death of Brandon Webber and the subsequent violence that occurred in the Frayser neighborhood of Memphis.
Brandon was a member of our Student Leadership Group and respected by his peers; he was passionate about breaking down stereotypes in his school and community. We offer our deepest sympathy to his family and friends.
We have no information on the details of these incidents to provide, only our condolences.
As an organization dedicated to lifting up young people using education we are particularly saddened by this tragedy.”
