#SAYHERNAME: BREONNA TAYLOR
As we join the masses of people in expressing our collective outrage about the senseless slaying of Ahmaud Arbery, we must lift up the name of yet another Black woman who has been tragically taken from her loved ones by the police. With heavy and angry hearts we mothers of #SayHerName stand together with AAPF to Say The Name of Breonna Taylor, a daughter, sister, niece, and granddaughter who was unjustly executed in her own home on March 13, 2020 by the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department.
Her life was taken when officers entered her home in the wee hours of the morning on a no-knock warrant searching for a suspect who had already been detained. The officers fired more than 20 shots throughout Breonna’s apartment, striking the unarmed EMT eight times.
On behalf of mothers, families, and loved ones who have endured the loss of Black women at the hands of law enforcement--all too often accompanied by muted responses from the media, elected officials and sometimes even our own communities--we know of the unfathomable pain that the family of Breonna Taylor must endure in relative silence. To the state that allows officers to take our lives without consequences, to the media that routinely accept that being unsafe in our own homes is apparently all Black women can expect, and to community members whose demand for justice has yet to embody the urgency, shock and righteous indignation that the killing of our daughters rightfully deserves, we say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! WE DEMAND VISIBILITY!! WE DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!!! WE DEMAND JUSTICE!!!!
Our lives matter, our daughters’ lives mattered, Breonna Taylor’s life mattered.
We will continue our fight for JUSTICE just as vigilantly for our daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, grandmothers--for all Black women--as we do for all Black life!
As Benjamin Crump, attorney for the families of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor said, “If you ran for Ahmaud, you can stand for Bre.” Our love and commitment to all of our children demand that we do exactly that.
-The Mothers of Say Her Name and AAPF