As people mourned the loss of children, parents and relatives to COVID-19, Tamika Palmer grieved the death of her eldest daughter, Breonna Taylor, to the plague of violence against Black people, one that continues to sweep the country year after year.
Now, nearly a year since her death, Breonna Taylor remains an enigma. She didn’t have a fancy job, and she wasn’t a high-profile figure. But something about her death moved people to the streets.
What made her, more than the women who died before her, become a household name?
Why Breonna Taylor?
As the news of her death spread across the country, Black women realized a harrowing truth: Breonna Taylor could have been them.
She could have been their younger sisters, their aunties, their ride-or-die girlfriends.
“When I looked at her picture, I was like ‘She looks like me.’ That's the first thing I thought," said Krystle Ellis, the senior director of development and communications at Ronald McDonald House Charities of Rochester, New York.
Ellis said she could see herself walking through Breonna Taylor's day. She and others grieved for the life the Louisville resident lost.
What made Breonna Taylor’s case powerful and action-provoking for so many was the normal nature of the young woman they saw smiling in photos.
— Krystle Ellis
She’s literally a beautiful soul who was living a normal everyday life and here she is.
So how is any other Black woman protected?
on Breonna Taylor
So they took to the streets for Breonna Taylor, but also for their nieces. For their goddaughters. For their annoying older sisters and their bratty little ones.
They marched because they knew if she could be killed in her bed, in her home, they could be next. And if it was them, they’d want someone to fight like hell to make sure their names were never forgotten.
Black women walk in her name to create that safety that doesn’t yet exist for everyone in America.
It’s their way of saying that although the world couldn’t keep her safe, they will keep her memory safe and work to achieve safety for others like her.
— Ash-Lee Henderson
The goal isn't to just build strong movements for the sake of being able to be good at fighting against police violence and state sanctioned violence.
The goal is to build the United States – to build a world – where we don't have to do it anymore.
co-executive director of the Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee.
Read more about Breonna Taylor's movement at USATODAY.COM