Category: Featured
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The Eyes Behind Us: Final Day of Sandra Bland Grand Jury
*This is the blog you write when your writing pen and your phone are your only form of defense while walking amongst armed men and women, and you hope that somehow those tools can make the people you care about safer. In the third floor Courtroom of the Waller County Courthouse, the Grand Jury finished their discussion…
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The Whistling Sheriff: Sandra Bland Grand Jury
“It wasn’t me. It was her! It was her!,” Sheriff R. Glenn Smith joked, pointing at Officer L. Watts, a female, African American Officer on his force. It was individuals like Officer Watts that Sheriff Smith had referred to repeatedly in the media when arguing that there could not have been any racial component in…
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Pry It Loose: Sandra Bland Civil Trial
“Let me know if I need to pry it loose,” Judge David Hittner said at the December 17th status hearing for the Civil Trial brought by the family of Sandra Bland. “Pry it loose.” It must have been the third time at least that he had used that particular combination of words in his remarks…
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Why You’ve Never Heard Me Say Sandra Bland Was Murdered
You’ve never heard me say that Sandra Bland was murdered. Words are precious to me. I handle them with care. I work with poets who shuffle them around like puzzle pieces on a table until they find just the right fit. I was raised by a man who took the half-page permission slips that my…
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The Creeping Fear of Waller County
There are few vehicles in the world that I am more familiar with than the Waller County Sheriff’s truck. In the 80 consecutive days that we sat in vigil for Sandra Bland outside the Waller County Jail, I lost count of how many times we saw it parked around the side of the building for…
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Open Letter To the Sheriff of Waller County
Dear sir, Last night, for the first time, I looked at one of the articles that was written after you told me to “go back to the Church of Satan that you run.” At the time, I’ll be honest, I was aware that there was a good deal of media taking place around your comments…
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How many tasers will it take to wake Waller County?
“We were advised by legal counsel to cancel the meeting,” Prairie View City Councilmen Jonathan Randall said to the crowd of students and Prairie View community members crowded around the front door of Prairie View City Hall on October 15 to stand in solidarity with their City Councilman, the Honorable Jonathan Miller. Community members had…
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Why We Say Her Name: Sandra Bland
As she arrived at the security check and showed her I.D., the airport agent’s eyes welled with tears at the sight of Sandra Bland’s mother; proving that even TSA is not immune to the power of her story and presence. This has become the new normal for the Bland family as Sandra’s voice strikes a…
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When Bernie Promised to #SayHerName #SandraBland
To put your money where your mouth is and support Sandra’s family go to the Sandra Bland Legal Fund; keep track of the movement at SandySpeaksOn.com “That’s Bernie Sanders,” my sister said, indicating an unpretentious man with a full head of white hair that had slipped past me and tucked himself into a table in the…
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Sandra Bland In A Sea of Red: Remembering The Names We Forget
“Hey, I am from Houston,” I said recognizing the gentle face of the woman walking next to me among the families of those lost to police brutality walking together to the 20th Anniversary of the Million Man March. Behind us in a sea of red shirts was Trayvon Martin’s mother, ahead of us Michael Brown’s…
Hannah Adair Bonner 