Category: Justice
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An Open Letter to My Unapologetic Black Sisters
“What did Sandra Bland do wrong?” the reporter from Memphis asked as we arrived at the Waller County jail on Day 11 of what is now 21 days. “She was black,” my friend Andrea Sawyer-Gray, Curator of (Her)story, replied without skipping a beat. In the undertone were the echoes of another truth: she was black…
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Sandra Bland: Fighting For Life, Both Hers & Yours
“Isn’t that what you are here for?!?” the white, female ABC reporter in front of us raged. She had watched from her SUV as those of us keeping vigil for Sandy Bland outside of Waller County Jail watched the video of Sandy’s arrest for the first time, huddled around one of our smart phones. It…
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What Happened to Sandra Bland?
From July 15 – Sitting Vigil for Sandra Bland – Arrested for failing to signal a lane change and found dead in her cell “Blow that out,” the voice came loud and stern over the loud speakers of the Waller County Sheriff’s Office and County Jail. Moments earlier, we had lit a votive candle on…
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My Feet Are Planted
“Don’t you think there is another side of the story,” was his opening line, as I pondered the stranger in front of me with puzzlement. My mind scrambled. What story? What other side? “What do you mean?” I queried, studying the white collar, Caucasian man, a couple decades my elder. “Well don’t you think there’s…
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Duke: Cutting Down Nets and Nooses
“Maybe now they’ll stop hanging nooses off trees on campus…” I read the words just moments after I had added my own throwback photo to the avalanche flooding newsfeeds with Duke alumni’s exuberance over their NCAA win. In the midst of celebrating Coach K cutting down the net as a symbol of Duke basketball’s dominance, the irony was not…
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Snap.
Snap. Snap. Snap. As a small child I practiced over and over again. Insistent. Determined. Until, with the passing of years, the passing of my second finger down the side of my small thumb converted itself from silence to thunderclaps. With each unexpected eruption of noise I sent out a tiny warning signal to the world…
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Last Glance
“Agua! Agua, por favor. Para mi bebé,” the young mother boarding the bus pleaded, catching my arm. Not knowing if I would have time, I sprinted across the bus terminal to the vending machines. My friend Jasminne explained that this woman had been unable to obtain water for her infant because she did not have the right…
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A Time to Listen, A Time to Speak
“I cannot wait until I am in a different appointment, so that I can preach the way that you do.” I cocked my head to the side, a little puzzled. I had just finished a sermon on racism, privilege, solidarity and what it means to be the family of God as the guest preacher at…
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Take Off Your Shoes
“Take off your shoes” had been the words that came into my spirit standing before the Michael Brown memorial in Ferguson, Missouri. Quickly and quietly, I slipped them off. “Thank you,” said one of the men from the Canfield Apartments, standing watch over the memorial. “I appreciate your respect,” he continued, “Go on over there.…
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Real Talk at Ferguson City Council
“I don’t hate you,” he said, as his eyes locked with mine, pleading – or perhaps demanding – that I believe him. The young man, a representative from the Hands Up Don’t Shoot Coalition had just taken to the microphone after a wait that had lasted hours, as residents and non-residents of Ferguson, Missouri vocalized…
Hannah Adair Bonner 