Black Men that were victims of racism, violence, and police brutality.
“Two months ago I had a nice apartment in Chicago. I had a good job. I had a son. When something happened to the Negroes in the South I said, `That's their business, not mine.' Now I know how wrong I was. The murder of my son has shown me that what happens to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us all.”
- Mamie Till
“I looked up and saw bullets coming from what seemed like the front of the apartment and the kitchen area in the back. Bullets were going into the mattress. The sparks of light, the bed vibrating - I just knew with all this going on, it was all over. At some point the shooting stopped. Fred didn't move anymore. I came out with my hands up. There were two lines of police I had to walk though. One of them grabbed my robe and pulled it open. I was eight and a half months pregnant then. "Well, what do you know. We have a pregnant broad." Another policeman grabbed me by the hair and slung me into the kitchen area. I looked around and saw Ron Satchel on the dining room floor. He had blood all over him. Verlina Brewer was in the kitchen, bleeding. She started to fall. They grabbed her and threw her against the refrigerator. Then more shooting. I heard a voice that wasn't familiar to me say, "He's barely alive. He'll barely make it." I assumed they were talking about Fred. The shooting started again, just for a brief period. It stopped. Then another unfamiliar voice said, "He's good and dead now."
- Akua Njeri
“They killed Sean all over again. That’s what it felt like to us. Yesterday, they- the justice system let me down. I gave them the benefit of the doubt. I’m still praying for justice because it’s not over. It’s far from over”
- Nicole Parker Bell
“I’m the one who told him to take BART, thinking he would be safe. I didn’t want them to be out there drinking and driving... and he said, ‘ok, mama, I’ll take BART for you”
- Wanda Johnson
“I thought surely that he would be found guilty of second degree murder, manslaughter at the least. I just knew that they would see that this was a teenager just trying to get home... My son was unarmed and the person that shot and killed him got away with murder”
- Sybrina Martin
“We just hope we get justice, and a lot of other lives don’t be taken like my brother”
- Will Ferrell
“Everything that my dad taught me- ‘you have to be a leader, you have to lead by example.’ Now I understand why he was telling me all those things growing up”
- Erica Garner
Leslie McSpadden, mother of Michael Brown, was asked why she was qualified to run for city council. Her response “If a mother had to watch her son lay on the street for four hours and watch our community be completely disrespected by the people we elected, what would you do? You would stand up and you would fight too”
- Leslie McSpadden
“A big piece of the family is gone because he was the life of the party. He kept everyone together and smiling.” - Tyniece Hunter
“There’s nothing in this world that can heal my pain and my heartache”
- Sylvia Palmer
“I shouldn’t be standing here looking down at him. He should be standing here looking down at me”
- Tressa Sherrod
Judy Scott, mother of Walter Scott speaks about the phone call she received from her son, Walter Scott after he was tased “The next thing I heard they stopped him and he began to say, 'They tasing me,' He began to groan and he began to moan, he was in a lot of pain.” She told him "whatever they say just do it so there wouldn’t be any problems." She then heard the gun shots. Walter was shot five times in the back.
"Two little boys came and knocked on my door and said, 'Police officers just shot your son twice in the stomach,' I really thought they was playing, like joking around, but I saw the seriousness in their face, and it scared me." She ran to the scene frantic and said “I saw my daughter in the back of a police car, the same one the shooter got out of.” - Samaria Rice
“I am so disappointed in the state of Minnesota. My son loved this state. He had one tattoo on his body and it was of the Twin Cities. The state of Minnesota with TC on it, My son loved this city, and the city killed my son and the murderer gets away. Are you kidding me right now. We are not evolving as a civilization we’re devolving.
We have taken steps forward, people have died to have these rights and now we’re devolving, we’re going back down to 1969. DAMN! What is it gonna take. I’m mad as hell right now, yes I am. My first born, one son, dead here in Minnesota under the circumstances just because he was a police officer that makes it okay, on now they’ve got free reign, he’s found innocent on all counts. He shot into a car with no regard for human life and that’s okay. Thank you Minnesota! Thank you Minnesota! That’s all I have to say.”
- Valerie Castile
“I’ve woken up so many days, hearing myself calling him, ‘EJ, EJ, EJ, but he’s not here anymore”
- Emantic Bradford Sr
“I didn’t know she was white until now. If it was a white man would it have been different? Would she had reacted differently... I don’t want to judge her. We are Christians. We forgive. But I need to look into her eyes, and ask her why did she do that to my son. She took away my heart. My soul. He didn’t deserve to die. The explanation does not make sense.”
- Allison Jean
“Our family will never be the same; the kids will never be the same.”
- Charmaine Edwards
"I'm going to tell them when they get older -- when they get real older -- what happened to their father. That he was a hero, and he saved a lot of people."
- Avontae Boose
"They didn't have to kill him like that. They didn't have to shoot him that many times.”
- Sequita Thompson
“I use to say our children were messengers to a future, we will never see. Now our children are sending us to a future they will never see”
- Elijah Cummings
Six police officers in Baton Rogue were shot, in wake of the Alton Sterling shooting. Still grieving from her nephews death Sandra Sterling reached out to the officers family “I know what they’re going through, I want to hug them and let them know that I know and understand”
- Sandra Sterling
Just before Betty Shelby shot and killed Terrence Crutcher, a police officer watching above from a helicopter said Terrence Crutcher looked like a “bad dude” You all want to know who that big ‘bad dude’ was, That big ‘bad dude’ was my twin brother. That big ‘bad dude’ was a father. That big ‘bad dude’ was a son. That big ‘bad dude’ was enrolled at Tulsa Community College — just wanting to make us proud. That big ‘bad dude’ loved God. That big ‘bad dude’ was at church singing, with all his flaws, every week.”
- Tiffany Crutcher
“The acquittal and the decision to put her immediately back on the job is indicative of how a white woman's fear of a black man is considered an acceptable excuse”
- BLM
“There is no amount of money that can bring his soul back, but they did not have to do what they did. I want them to pay, and my version of them paying is to send them where murderers go, because that’s what they did to my little brother.”
- Ruby Hawkins
Gregg Gunn was stopped by officer Aaron Smith “not because he was doing anything wrong, but because he was black. He was black at 3 in the morning."
- Kenneth Gunn
"That presence is going to be missed in here... He was a family man... He kept us laughing. For us, this is real life, and for y'all, it's just a story.”
- DaShonda Reid
Before his tragic death, Kalief Browder wrote an essay on solitary confinement for a class at Bronx Community College. “Is solitary confinement a good helpful way to rehabilitate inmates or is solitary confinement only making matters worse? As a result many inmates undergo many unnecessary mental health problems that are left up to them and their family members to deal with and fix... There are a lot of mental issues within inmates and ex-inmates that stem from solitary confinement… physical symptoms are chest pains, weight loss, diarrhea, dizziness, and fainting.” There are many psychological symptoms: decreased ability to concentrate, confusion, memory loss, visual as well as auditory hallucinations, paranoia, overt psychosis, violent fantasies, anxiety, depression in huge numbers, lethargy, and trouble sleeping.” Attempts to commit suicide are not uncommon. These mental health issues often send ex-inmates right back to prison because of misbehaviors that stem from their stay in solitary confinement. These ongoing issues are breaking and tarring up families because their family members are left to pick up the shattered pieces of the ex-inmate with severe mental health issues and some of the ex-inmate have neither family members or health insurance to care for them leaving it a stronger possibility to end up back in prison due mental misbehaviors that stem from solitary confinement... In July, 2013 in California prisons, inmates went on a hunger strike to try to abolish solitary confinement. According to Story ‘That year, about 12 000 prisoners across more than a dozen institutions had used one of the last powers available to them in their austere conditions — the power to stop eating — to draw public attention to the problem of prison isolation’ For a large number of inmates to starve themselves to raise attention to the issue of solitary confinement speaks volumes of the mental tortures it consist of. Maybe another form of punishment or segregation should be implemented to deal with inmates who break jail rules as opposed to inmates who cause severe harm to other inmates and correction officers because the mental health risk it poses are too great.”
DeAnthony Cunningham was riding in the passenger seat of his friends car. Nearby police ran the tags, and saw that the car was stolen. Officer Michael Guin approached the car with his gun drawn. Scared, DeAnthony ran. When police finally caught up to him, he was on his knees, with his hands in the air. Officer Benjamin Griggs shot DeAnthony in the back of the head, on what he said was an accident. When DeAnthony’s mother Felice Cunningham heard what happened, she ran to the hospital. Doctors told her that her son had a 5% chance to survive, they advised her to “release him” she said “no” and the doctors continued care. After dozens of surgeries, and therapy DeAnthony survived. He learned to walk again. After being homeschooled by his mother he will soon have his high school diploma. With each new shooting and death of an unarmed Black man Felice is reminded that she almost lost her son. She says “sometimes I wish I could see those mothers and just wrap my arms around them and let them know, it’s tough. It’s really tough... my baby did survive. I can’t imagine what they are going through” - Felice Cunningham
Leon Ford was nineteen when he was pulled over by officer Kosko, detective David Derbish, and detective Andrew Miller. Detectives Derbish and Miller were both officers at the time of the stop. Though Leon had no warrants, he had a similar name to gang member, Lamont Ford. Even though one of the officers had run ins with the actual gang member Lamont Ford, he still thought Leon looked like Lamont. Leon recalls “It just seemed like he wanted me to be Lamont Ford." After searching for Leon’s information for over twenty minutes, the officers asked Leon to get out of the car. He refused, because he said he was afraid. That’s when one of the officers tried to pull Leon out of the car. During the struggle the car was knocked into gear and started to move, that’s when one of the officers shot Leon in the chest five times. After the incident Leon was charged with aggravated assault, he was later acquitted. Leon filed a lawsuit against the officers. One of the officers was cleared of assault and battery claims. The jury deadlocked over excessive force charges against other officers. Since the shooting Leon studied criminal justice at Duquesne University. He openly speaks out against police violence. Six years to the day he was shot, Leon Ford launched his campaign for Pittsburg City Counsel.
“They heard us, but they weren’t listening, We’re tired of protesting. We’re tired of going to these community forums that aren’t really solution based. We’re tired of politicians playing us like our voices matter when they’ve already made decisions that are impacting our lives... I never considered running for office until I realized that I was one of the only voices bold enough to stand up for the people and speak truth to power. I am more than a survivor; I am a champion for all the people who have lost faith in our leaders and the system.”
-Leon Ford